Is the town Castellabate, Santa Maria and San Marco? It sure is different than the Amalfi Coast. ooh, can't wait to hike! Did you check out caves and do a little spelunking?

willit, thank you so much for sharing. I really appreciate it!

Castellabate isthe old town on the hill with the castle. Looking down from the Castle, towards the sea, the fishing port on your right is San Marco di Castellabate and to the left is the main town (in terms of shops) of Santa Maria di Castellabate.

Perdifumo is in the hills maybe two miles from Castellabate (the old town) as the crow flies, but probably 5 miles on the winding roads.

ekscrunchy - #14 is taken from the hill above San Marco. Castellabate is on the Hill, Santa Maria at the other end of the beach.

Thanks so much..that really clarifies the layout!

willit, Did you hire a boat? Check out caves? etc. etc.?

I am claustrophobic, so Spelunking (or potholing as I believe we call it on this side of the Atlantic) is up their with my worst nightmares. I know there are some decent caves in the Cilento national park, but would have to look up their location.

I believe you can hire boats from the Harbour at San Marco, but have never done it.

Returning to this thread for a moment, can anyone (Willit, TX?) give me an idea of the character of the two Castellabate coastal towns--San Marco and Santa Maria? Would you favor one or the other for a stay of a couple of nights? Which has the best swimming beach?

Can you walk from one to the other? Any reason to choose one over the other?

The best beach, IMO, is the one separating the two towns. Santa Maria is bigger (although hardly big), has a couple of supermarkets, a nice main street for the obligatory Passeggiata, far more restaurants, bars and gelato shops.

San Marco is basically the houses around the harbour. A couple of bars(including my favourite - a small family run place overlooking the harbour) a few restaurants (not too many open "out of season").

It is easy to walk between them, 20-30 minutes maybe - but you have to walk up the hill, and along the main road. There is no sidewalk/pavement so you are walking along the road itself . This isn't as bad as it sounds as it is wide, and has a broad strip down the edge, but there are a couple of points where you need to wait for a break in the traffic.
Alternatively you can walk along the beach. There is also a shuttle bus that runs fairly frequently between Ogliastro marina, San Marco, Santa Maria and Castellabate.

Thank you SO much.

Willit, I am having a difficult time finding train times and costs online from Agropoli to Rome, I am assuming it goes to Naples first. Did you ever take the train? I did figure out that the train from Salerno would cost about $200 USD for 4 people. I am thinking of doing that for a day so I don't have to spend so much time driving.....We are going to Rome at the end of our trip but the Vatican will not be open when we are there, so we wanted to make a special trip to check it out.....

eks, I did buy THE FOOD AND WINE GUIDE TO NAPLES AND CAMPANIA from Amazon and was happy to see that my used copy was signed by the author. I gave one copy to my parents and one copy for myself. I am looking forward to using it!

Willit, any more photos? food suggestions? or other tips? my trip is a little over two months away!

C

Hi cmndesign. I have never done Agropoli to Rome, but have done the trip to Naples frequently.

I have done a quick search on the Trenitalia website, and Agropoli to Termini station, Rome can be done. The problem, as always with Italian trains is you can have fast and you can have cheap, but not both.

For example, you can get the 06:50 high speed train changing at Naples to Rome arriving at 10am, but it costs €51 one way.

Catch the same train and change at Battipaglia, and it only costs €28, but takes nearly 5 hours and arrives at Lunchtime.

There is a cheap (4 hour) train back at 18:40, or a fast tain back at around 8pm.

I will see if I can find any more photos. I had forgotten I'd posted the link. The sunset picture of the boats in the harbour is taken from the family run bar I mentioned.

Food wise, I brought back a couple of litres of the local olive oil (Terre dei Monaci). There are a couple of very good delicatessens in Santa Maria , but it is worth seeing if you can get the same stuff at the supermarket significantly cheaper. There is a big market in Santa Maria on Saturday mornings - we buy a lot of our food there. It is at the far end of the main road/walkway through town , at the opposite end to the castle/hotel, near the post office - just follow the crowds.

CMN: when are you going to Cilento?

I was surprised to see quite a bit of information on the area in the new Frommer's guide to the Amalfi Coast, so you might want to take a look....Cadogan also has some info in its Naples and southern Italy guide.

Eks, I will be in Cilento June 8th - July 4th. We are spending two days in Sant'Agata dei Goti at the start of our trip. I think I have purchased just about every book on the area. If most books have anything it is just a paragraph or two. The best book though so far has been: Bay of Naples & Southern Italy by Cadogan Guides. It has a map of the area and at least a sentence about most of the significant towns. With that being said, it is still only two and a half pages. I guess I need to write a travel book about the area! But then again, no!

I can't believe I don't have the Frommer's book.

I am thinking that we may just take the train from Salerno, or maybe we could just drive to Naples in the a.m. and catch the train there. We are sharing a car with my parents so I wanted them to have the car for the day while we are gone. Do you recommend purchasing the tickets in advance, or just buying them when we want to leave. We wil also be in Naples the day before we go to Rome, so I could get them then......ahhh, details! C

Yes, I was very surprised by the extent of info in the Frommer guide. Not only that, they have some good information on the areas along the Amalfi Coast that are a bit off the tourist trail, including some of the hill towns above the coast.

I think the train ticket issue depends on how many daily trains run that route. If just a few, you might think about buying in advance. But I am not an expert on trains in Italy, as I usually rent a car except for city visits.

I have never bought Italian train tickets online. If theTrenitalia website is anything like the Spanish Renfe site, I would do anything to avoid it. You could buy them at the station, or use a travel agent once you arrive in Italy, which is what I have done.

bkmarking

I looked again at the trains, and Salerno to Rome is 3 hours each way €50 return. The problem being that Perdifumo to Salerno by car is about 90 minutes, much of it on winding, slow roads.

I still haven't found my Italian walking guides for the area. I will have a decent search over the weekend.