lbecker24

This board was a big help in the planning, as well as tripadvisor and Rick Steves, so here we go. It’s long, so I’ll split it up.

The basic itinerary:
Sept. 19 flew from Boston via Munich to Venice, got in midday Tuesday, Sept 20. Stayed three nights Venice, four nights Sorrento, two nights Positano, one last night outside Naples in order to fly out Friday, Sept. 30th at noon.

Arrived Venice Marco Polo airport and found the ATVO blue bus which took us to Piazzale Roma in Venice (buy the tickets inside the airport, get them validated in the machine where you stand in line for the bus). In Piazzale Roma we found the proper vaporetto to get to our hotel in San Polo, the exact geographic center of Venice. Locanda Sant’ Agostin is a wonderful small hotel in a very quiet spot. We got a large room (for Venice) overlooking a tiny square with a small canal running past where we could watch the world from our wee balcony. Our hotel budget is usually about $200 a night but my husband gave me leave to upgrade (we take turns planning vacations; this one was all mine) so all our rooms were closer to the $300 a night range. A small breakfast buffet was included. I immediately bought a detailed map from a store nearby (wish I had brought a magnifying lens) and we set off to explore the city. I found this website: http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/ the day before I left, and recommend it.

Our first day in Venice we followed the signs and crowds to Rialto Bridge and St. Marks Square. We decided to skip the Doges Palace and instead got the heck away from the mob and headed over to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. We took a traghetti (a cheapo one-minute half-euro gondola ride across the Grand Canal; any map will show you where to find these) and found ourselves looking for lunch in Dorsoduro. Now, meals are really important to me. My husband would be happy with a feed bag of Purina Human Chow (chicken flavor) strapped around his neck, so we’d get into tussles about where we were eating. He’d want to plop down just anywhere and I wanted great food, outside tables with a view, etc. We ended up at Ristorante Alle Zattere, on the Grand Canal facing the islands. It was overpriced but I can still see that view and taste that lasagna. We walked back up the street to the Guggenheim, which was great, then it was time to go back to the room and chill. We found a vaporetto stop but no place to buy tickets. We were told to buy them from the conductor, but the boat was so jammed it seemed like a hassle so we decided to chance getting caught and we didn’t. I’m not condoning this behavior, I’m just reporting here. Dinner that night was at La Rivietta, good not great, but memorable because a burned ex-customer came by late in the evening and started screaming at the owner and turning over tables. We got free grappa for our troubles.

The next day I decided to make a test run to the Santa Lucia train station where we were leaving from the day after that. DH thought this was insane, so he went shopping. I was very, very happy I did it because I had managed to buy tickets on line from Trenitalia with the help of this website: http://www.seat61.com/Italy-trains.h...0trains%20like but I wasn’t able to print out the tickets, just a voucher. I also needed to figure out how to get to the Mestre train station on the mainland, where our train to Naples was leaving from. Santa Lucia station was a total zoo, with lines everywhere and no one to answer questions. I finally found out that all trains go thru Mestre, so I could get on any train in the morning, then switch to my Trenitalia train. There were lots of Trenitalia ticket machines and it was pretty easy to print out my tickets. I found a couple of other older looking machines that let me print out two tickets to Mestre for one euro twenty each. The whole ordeal took almost an hour and I would have been frantic the next day. I was also happy to know exactly how to get to Santa Lucia which was walking distance from our hotel. Our next agenda item was to take the #1 slow vaporetto for a joyride. I decided the best chance of getting a seat outside (in the front or the back for the best views) meant going back to Piazzale Roma, where the boat started from. We walked over to PR (everything in Venice is walking distance; the place is tiny) and we found lunch at Caffe La Ramblas, where the owner gave us little glasses of homemade wine and I had great baby clams and mussels. We did indeed find seats on the boat and had a nice relaxing ride (no one checked to see if we had tickets, though we did). That night we had another great seafood meal at Ristaurante Il Paradiso, near the Rialto. This was the spendiest meal of our trip; our fish and potato dishes were about $30 each.

The next morning we left Venice. If we had another day there, we would have gone to one of the islands, probably San Georgio Maggiore for the biennial exhibit hedge maze.

zeppole

Hmmmm, interesting memories from La Rivetta. Was this during the heat wave?

qwovadis

Nice report great detail thanks for posting.

lbecker24

No heat wave while we were in Venice. The next installment (Sorrento) will come as soon as my editor (DH) can take a look at it.

Marija

Got a good laugh from the Purina Human Chow (chicken flavor)! Looking forward to reading more.

tejana

Love your report so far. Is there anything better than starting or ending an Italian vacation in Venice? And I completely agree with the "recon" trip to Santa Lucia - I've done exactly the same thing (in many cities), and it was always worth it for the peace of mind on travel day.

lbecker24

And now: Sorrento!

Leaving Venice, we rode first class to Naples with a change of trains in Bologna without any trouble. The dining car on the train was very expensive and the bar car had limited food options. I wish I had bought intriguing triangle sandwiches from the machines on the train platforms for two euro (funghi! prawns!), instead we got stuck with boring triangle tuna sandwiches on the train for 4 euro each. Our first class status got us a tiny glass of wine and snack. Easyjet would have gotten us to Naples in a quarter of the time for a quarter of the price but DH was insistent about wanting to take a train... AND HE DUG IT!!!

When we got to allegedly scary, dirty, crime-ridden Naples, we found and used the Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento. The train was easy to find, just follow the signs and when you get outside, turn right and go down an escalator and the ticket booths are ahead of you. I forgot to ask which track to go on but DH managed to find it somehow. Note that not all trains go to Sorrento but there is a small schedule board over the tracks to tell you which train you’ll want. The Circumvesuviana was air-conditioned, but it was packed, and we stood the entire way to Sorrento (about an hour). I thought it must be because it was rush hour, but maybe it’s always packed. We heard of other tourists being robbed on this train so stay sharp.

The train left us off about two blocks from Piazza Tasso, the main square in Sorrento, and from there our hotel was just a block away. Hotel Anticha Mura was really outstanding. Great service, very nice rooms, huge breakfast buffet, a lovely pool set amongst lemon trees and a perfect location. The only downside was even on the 5th floor, there was traffic noise, but our balcony doors did a great job of blocking it out. The hotel offered excursions and I had booked two; a tour of Amalfi and Ravello and a half-day trip to Pompeii. We checked in after our long travel day to find that the first tour started the next morning at 7:50 a.m. and lasted 9 hours. For some reason I imagined we would be all rested after sitting on a train for 5 hours. My husband opted to bail on this but I went anyway and was glad I did. But first, dinner; the best meal we had on the trip. Tavern Allegra is in the old part of town; a little hole in the wall with great food and MUSIC. That’s all I’ll tell you. Just go.

The next morning I left my hotel and walked three blocks to a big parking lot where all or most bus tours leave from Sorrento. A large crowd amassed, and every time a new bus pulled in we all ran over to figure out if we were on it. I think this is a theme in Italy: no signs, no information, no one to ask, just large crowds of tourists running back and forth like squirrels trying to figure out if they’re in the right place. According to my travel voucher I was booked on Goldentours so I needed to find the bus that had that sign in the front window. Eventually one showed up with a clipboard-wielding person who called my name. Miraculously, I got a seat on the correct (right hand side) of the bus and off we went. To be fair, we all swapped seats midway thru the trip. The first stop was Amalfi with a surprise boat ride option for an additional 10 euros (the entire trip was 34 euros). Our guide was a very knowledgeable fellow who talked non-stop from the minute the bus started. He assured us that he would be on the boat narrating the tour which made me stay onshore and have a relaxing sit-down on the end of a pier. We had another hour after the 45-minute boat trip to toodle around town, which consisted of a church and little shops and 500 other tourists who poured off those buses. I’m now glad we picked Positano to stay in instead of Amalfi. The next stop was forced lunch in Scala at the only restaurant in town. On the plus side, it had a great view, wasn’t too expensive, and each table had a giant bottle of white wine on it. On the minus side, the food was utterly forgettable. The last stop was Ravello for an hour and my much anticipated trip to the gardens at Villa Rufolo (extra 5 euro). Great. Home to Sorrento at 5:15. Dinner at a place in the old town where the owner lured us in by saying, “Eat here, my food is nice,” and it was. The restaurant had 800 in the title. The place across the little street, (Il Pozzo) which had a boat on the porch, was better. We ate lunch there and the pizza was amazing.

The next day we stayed in Sorrento. It’s a resort town and very touristy, with “That’s Amore” and “Volare” coming at you, but it had great people watching and it grew on me. They have pedestrian-only streets except for the occasional car. Rules? What rules? I found a piece of the old wall dating from the 6th or 7th century. Cool.

Our final day was the half-day trip to Pompeii, which my husband attended. This was an excellent way to see the place. We found our bus (in the same place, so I knew the drill) and our guide told us the history on the way then guided us thru the ruins with headsets (feel free to bring your own earbuds which have better reception than the one ear plastic piece provided). The trip cost 32 euro but did NOT include admission of 11 euro to get in. Of course it was crowded and we had to maneuver around other tour groups, but we always found Christine by following her voice in our ears. Amazing.

Next up: Positano

lbecker24

Thanks for the nice feedback; here's the final installment.

We headed for Positano. After all my research I knew the way to get there was the SITA bus. When we got to Sorrento we started to hear unsettling stories about it; people waiting 2 hours then giving up, etc. I had the schedule and saw that there were lots of buses in the early morning but not so many as the day wore on. We checked out of our hotel and walked over to the bus stop at about 11:30, with the hopes of getting on, not the 12:20, but perhaps the 1:00. The bus left from the same area that the Circumvesuviana came in. Sure enough, when we arrived, there were at least 100 people waiting in line, and we knew the buses sat about 50. We bought our ticket from the little store, and settled in to chat with the people around us. At 12:30, when we were about 15 people from the front of the line we started to notice young people, 15-16 years old, getting off other buses and forming a crowd in the front of the line. When 30 of them were swarming around, one by one, the tourists realized they were going to cut in front of us and we started to complain to the one official that was standing nearby. Of course this was useless. “It’s the law,” he said. “The schoolchildren must get on the bus.” We were PISSED! The 1:00 bus arrived and stopped just before the kids, perhaps to give the tourists a fighting chance, and we took it. One by one we barricaded the bus doors, keeping the kids from getting on. They yelled and pouted and obviously this happens every day. DH and I had luggage, which we schlepped on and I held the side of those doors until my husband and the four ladies we’d be chatting with for an hour and a half got on and I couldn’t hold on any longer. It was pandemonium. We found seats with our luggage on our laps. The four grateful ladies promised to buy us lunch (then reneged when we got there; hey NJ and Westchester! I’m talkin’ to YOU!). We finally made it Positano and we were so flustered we walked the wrong way on the road. The moral of this story is if you are going to take the SITA bus for a day trip, get to the stop at 8 a.m. or better yet, skip this bus and hire a driver or take a cab. Life is too short for this kind of nonsense.

Positano is a very pretty town that spills down a hillside to the sea. Lots and lots of steps. This board turned me on to Villa La Tartana, close to the bottom of the town where, once we got down, we wouldn’t have to climb around to find everything we needed (food). Lovely place, nice people, small room with a big balcony overlooking the beach and port where we could watch the daytrippers come and go. A large, expensive restaurant, Buca de Bacco, was below us (with exhaust fans on the roof which I managed to mostly ignore). Positano was pricey. We ate two meals at Capricci – a mostly takeaway place on the right side of town as you face the water. They had a seats and a counter to sit at with a partial view of the ocean; very reasonable and great food.

I walked around the town, found the pretty little garden in Hotel Murat, walked along the path toward the towers on the right side of town and walked up and down the one pedestrian street and went into galleries and the church. We found the tourist office and finally found out that yes, there were still boats running and we wouldn’t have to go back to Naples via the horrible bus and train.

On our second to last day we took ferries; one to Sorrento followed by another to Naples. FYI: No food on the boats or at the dock in Sorrento. Also from this forum I had learned about the Ranch Palace Hotel – a great place to stay in Naples because it’s way up above the city and 15 minutes from the airport. I had called to tell them we were arriving at the port of Naples in the afternoon and they offered to send a shuttle for 30 euros. By now we had had it with trying to save money by taking public transportation. The “shuttle” turned out to be a gorgeous man in a great suit in a shiny black Mercedes. Heaven. The hotel was in turn sleek and a little strange, with high-end rooms, computers everywhere that allowed us to print out boarding passes, but a restaurant in the basement with giant TVs on the walls. No matter, the food was amazing and another gorgeous man took us to the airport the next day.

jh2011

One of the best reports I've read so far. This would also be a big help to those who would travel in Italy soon.

ekscrunchy

I enjoyed reading this, thanks! Good sense of humor!

I could not agree more on the disaster of the SITA buses, having just returned from that area myself after having given up my rental car in Sorrento. At least you stayed at the end of the line when in Sorrento, although from your comments that does not appear to have been much help. Imagine trying to board one in mid-route.

I wonder where you ate in Scala, as there are several restaurants there and I had a poor experience in one of them.

lbecker24

Thanks for the kudos.

The Scala resto had a large back patio that cantilevered (sp) over the valley across from Ravello, if that's any help.

Re: the SITA bus; one person did get on mid-route. An older gent squeezed in the back door amidst the standing high schoolers and the bus took a long detour up into the hills to drop him off. Must have been the driver's brother. Or maybe it was the mayor.

TexasAggie

Thanks for the great report! We did the SITA bus with luggage in May 2005... never again. The Circumvesuviana we will still do but not the SITA. We used driver Francesco Marapense in 2008 for the A/C and it was much, much easier.