Italy -- Sorrento vs. Positano???
 

My fiance and I are planning our honeymoon and are having a hard time choosing between spending 5 days in Sorrento or Positano. After which we're heading to Capri. Anyone have any advice on Sorrento vs. Positano? We are considering these hotels:

Sorrento: La Minervetta (http://www.laminervetta.com/index_ing.htm)

Positano: Eden Roc Positano (http://www.edenroc.it/)

While we're there, we're not interested in doing too much site seeing...just lounging by the pool/beach (?), and going out to eat. Any insight on the pros/cons of either location are greatly appreciated!

Um, Sorrento doesn;t really have a beach within the meaning of the act. Much of the town is on a high bluff overlooking the sea and the part of the town that is down by the beach has a lot of fishing boats - and is not very pleasant. In fact, most of the beaches along this coast are marginal at best - pebbles or gravel versus sand, narrow, often in the center of town with boats and paraphenalia - nothing like a beach you would sea in FL or the Carib. I wold stick with a hotel with a really nice pool - or one of the few places on Capri that has a real beach.

As for Sorrento vs Positano, the latter is a very small town built into the side of a mountain - with a lot of steps up- and down to get most anywhere. Sorrento is a larger town and has more in the way of restaurants and shops - and easier access to sightseeing versus train and ferry/hovercraft. We stay in Sorrento there (Grand Hotel Vittoria Excelsior - which has a great pool area, beautiful gardens and views out over the Bay of Naples) - but we are sightseeing - not beach - people.

Thank you for your feedback. We're realizing that "going to the beach" won't have the same meaning in Italy like you mentioned. Just can't figure out if one has more of a draw than the other.

If you look in the search box for "Sorrento Positano", you will find about a dozen discussions on this topic with a variety of view points. I like Sorrento and really like the area up on Via Capo, the bluffs where Hotel Albergo Minerva is located. The views are wonderful. It is a bit of a walk into town, but we did it everyday. You can take a bus or taxi, but we enjoyed the walk. If you are just going to relax anyway, either place would be fine as long as you have a great hotel with a pool and nice views.

I planned a trip for friends to Italy this past October, who were going there in celebration of their 30th anniversary (they also went to Italy for their honeymoon).

They stayed at the La Minervetta and it was their favorite hotel of their entire 2 week trip with a close second being the Antica Torre Tournabuoni in Florence. They said the view was incredible, the food wonderful, and the people could not have been more helpful.

They did a daytrip along the coast, stopping in Positano and another one to Pompei. They used Francesco Marrapese's car service for both daytrips, as well as transfers to/from Naples airport/train station.

It is difficult to choose but you can visit both places and then you'll know where you'd like to stay for your next time!

T4TX: Thank you so much for your comments re: La Minervetta. Much appreciated!!

If it helps put the two places into perspective...

Positano is a village of 4,000 people, with c.30 hotels and under 2000 bedspaces, which sees maybe 100,000 tourists a year - 60% of whom are foreigners.

Sorrento is a cathedral town with some 17,000 residents that has, with adjacent Sant'Angelo, almost 100 hotels and over 10,000 beds, attracting close on half a million visitors... 3 foreigners for every Italian.

For an idea of what's in and near them, you may like to download the useful 'Travel Directory' to the Sorrento Peninsula and Amalfi Coast, from the official tourism website, here...
http://www.costiera.it/weben/index.htm

High time that was updated, so do crosscheck the times, prices etc!

Peter

For a honeymoon, Positano hands down.
Look at Covo Saraceni, and Buca di Bacco, and Poseidon

Hi,
why don't you consider this hotel in Sorrento:
-Bellevue Syrene (http://www.bellevue.it/index.php?lng=en)
It's a 5 stars hotel very well located (closer to the center than La Minervetta) and specially more services: a private sundeck on the sea, a beauty spa, lift to the port and free drinks and snacks until 9pm.

Instead in Positano, if you wanna sleep in a luxury villa for a couple of nights, you could check: Villa tre Ville. it's really expensive, but it opened last summer and there're not enough words to describe it. (http://www.villatreville.it/villatreville/?&lng=en)