We land in Rome the morning of Easter Monday from California and will spend the night near Termini. This will give us time to get over jet lag and regroup as the four of us are traveling on two different airlines and we sometimes experience delays. My goal is to keep the ladies awake through the day and get to bed early. With that in mind, I'm thinking we could be very early risers and catch a train to Naples/Pompei, tour Pompeii for three or four hours (I understand there is a luggage hold there; we all travel with carry-on only) and then finish our travel to Capri. From Pompeii should we train back to Naples or go to Sorrento to catch a ferry/hydrofoil to Capri? Is this plan feasible? If we don't visit Pompeii on this day we will visit on one of our free days in Amalfi, but that is a lot of traveling to/from Amalfi and cuts down time on the Amalfi Coast. I'm trying to maximize the little time we have for vacation.

We did something like this on a trip to Paris, although not planned. On our first morning we awoke at about 5:00 am...caught the first train to Giverny. We were the first to get through the gate at Monet's gardens. It was unbelievable to have the gardens almost to ourselves. Having been there before, I knew people would head first to the house and I went right to the lily pond. For a little bit, I was alone. Even the gift shop was empty. It was wonderful. I was thinking that maybe this would work with Pompeii.

I should have mentioned that we are staying on Capri for a few nights--it's not a day trip. From Capri we will head to Amalfi.

Possible - very possible to me

from Pompeii by all means take the train the few miles to Sorrento and lots of boats to Capri

yes luggage depot at entrance to Pompeii ruins - right by the Scavi Station (Scavi means Ruins or Archaelogical site, etc.)

Much longer to backtrack to Naples and then have to transfer some miles to the boat docks for Capri

Sorrento's boat docks are at most a mile from the train station. Grab a taxi - so many boats just buy tickets at dock IME - large car ferries always have room if you can't get on an Aliscafi or catamaran that is only pedestrian i think and faster.

You should not retreat to Naples; go on to Capri via Sorrento.

Traveling the Amalfi Coast from Amalfi to get to Pompeii is surely an option and not a waste of time; hop on and off the bus and enjoy!

It sounds like you've been doing some research, so you probably know you have to switch to the Circumvesuviana train in Naples to get to Pompeii. As to whether you should continue down to Sorrento or back to Naples to catch the boat to Capri, I would check the boat schedules and see what is more convenient. Pompeii is more or less in the middle between the two. From Sorrento, you would probably want to take a taxi down to the ferry, but it isn't far. There are convenient little buses, too, but with luggage and multiple people, I would do the taxi. I don't know about getting to the port from the Naples train station.

Thanks for the advice.

<i>With that in mind, I'm thinking we could be very early risers and catch a train to Naples/Pompei</i>

Absolutely impossible to me. Why would you wake up EARLY on your first day? You'll still be on California time, i.e. 5:00 a.m. Rome time will be 8 p.m. the night before California time. If anything, you should wake up LATE the first day.

I agree that Sorrento makes sense, BUT ONLY IF THE FERRIES ARE RUNNING THAT EARLY IN THE SEASON. I would check with my hotel to check schedules from Sorrento--may not be many.

Thanks, Bob. Yes, I will check that the ferries are running that early. I'm hoping that they will since Easter is so late this year.

sf7307, I'm not sure what difference it makes what time it is in California. If we land in Rome at 9:00 am, stay up during the day and go to bed early that night, we should be fine early the next day. We just need a good night's sleep. I'm fortunate that I can change the time on my watch...and that's the time it is. Traveling wears me out, but the time change doesn't matter much to me. I do, however, need to encourage the ladies to get some rest on the plane or they will have difficulty staying awake after checking into our hotel. I take a little pill after boarding each flight and sleep through most of the trip.

luv2travel, hello from Shirley's traveling friend. Sounds like you have a great trip planned. Have a wonderful time.

I fly from SFO (California) to Italy and get to bed around say 11:00pm Italy time and am awake by 6:00am the next morning Italy time. I do well with seven hours sleep and per the above times that is what I get, seven hours sleep and I am ready to go..well after having a couple of cups of espresso of course.

I don't think you will have a problem with the ferries running.

You have another option for getting to Pompeii. The Marozzi bus leaves Rome's Tiburtina station at 7 am and arrives Pompeii at 10:00. It lets you avoid changing trains in Pompeii and your luggage is stored under the bus. 17€

Challiman -- Nice to meet you. It's such a small world. I had a feeling from reading some of your posts that you were Shirley's friend. My email address is [email protected].

kybourbon -- thanks for the tip about the bus. I will definitely look into that. It is certainly reasonably priced and should take about the same time as two trains.

Their website is only in Italian. The last time I used this bus, the pick-up/drop-off point was across the street from Tiburtina (a few metro stops from Termini). If you plan to bus, double check the location.
http://www.marozzivt.it/

Curreri also runs a bus on this route, but not an early morning except from Sorrento/Pompeii to Rome. You might want to use one of these for your return also. They used to depart from Piazza Tasso in Sorrento, but I think both just depart from the train station now. Someone said Curreri's drop-off was a bit of a trek from Tiburtina so I would check their location also. I don't think either bus runs on Sunday.
http://www.curreriviaggi.it/

Remember that Easter Monday is also a holiday so watch for holiday schedules. Since your travel to Pompeii is the next day, you should be ok. Hub and I ended up spending more time at Pomp. than we thought-it really captured our imagination.

Yes, go to Sorrento from there and taxi to Capri ferry.

BTW, it took our city bus over an hour to go from Sorrento to Amalfi-traffic was ridiculous. Two cars can pass each other, a bus and a car can, but when 2 busses meet, someone has to give way. That can mean backing into the closest lay-by and stopping everything!

Have a great great time.

Nice to meet you, too, luvtotravel! Amazing, that must be true about there being 6 degrees of separation.
Shirley's a great traveling companion. Too bad we won't be in Italy at the same time. We did Barcelona during Easter, arrived Good Friday, there were some closings but nothing terrible. Of course we managed to eat well despite the closures!
Have a great trip.

Thomas Cook timetable indicates there are lots of sailings between Sorrento and Capri the whole year round - i was there one November and did sorrento to capri and there were many boats then. But check it out i guess anyway.

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Capri - getting here
You can reach Capri by ferry or hydrofoil from either Naples or Sorrento. Transportation from Naples is available either at the port of Calata Porta di ...
www.capri.net/en/getting-here

Capri - Ferry schedule
Select destination, Capri - Napoli, Napoli - Capri, Capri - Sorrento, Sorrento - Capri ... Ferries for Capri from the port of 'Porta di Massa' in Naples. ...
www.capri.net/en/ship-timetable - 20k - 20 hours ago

Excellent information. Thank you so much, Palenque.