There is a lot of stuff do in Naples and the Amalfi coast so we scheduled 8 nights in Sorrento which is close to many different attractions. We could explore Sorrento, train to Pompei, train to Naples, boat to Capri, or bus to Positano and Amalfi and the other towns on the coast. We had great weather the whole time and there is not a shortage of good pictures from what we have seen.
Pompei was the highlight of this area to me. It was huge and I was amazed about how much of the city is still standing. It is really cool to see at least the structure of an actual Roman city. When Vesuvius blew in 79AD, it didn’t really knock down the walls, the thick hot ash killed everyone and burned the wood but the city was still there. It was preserved under the ash for centuries until it was finally excavated in the 16th century and excavations are still on going. Most of the bronze and marble statues are now in the archeology museum in Naples which we actually saw first. Really cool to see so much museum quality stuff from the first century up close.
When they were excavating, they realized that there were cavities under the ash. They poured plaster in the cavities and you can see the bodies of the doomed Pompei residents and dogs in their last moments alive.
We ended up traveling to Naples a few times from Sorrento which was a bit of a chore. We had to ride 85 minutes both ways on a rickety narrow gauge train which was often delayed. Naples is the third largest city in Italy and is really busy and dense. We had some great pizza and liked walking the pedestrian only streets and the downtown shops. We went to Pompei one day, one day we went to the archeology museum, and one day we visited the Capodimonte museum. In 2020 the Seattle Art Museum had an exhibit of loaned art from the Farnese collection in the Naples Capodimonte. I saw the exhibit 2 or 3 times in Seattle and I was excited to see the full collection in Naples.
Positano was another must stop on the Amalfi Coast. The town is glued along steep cliffs which provides some excellent views and photos. We took the bus along a very narrow windy road from Sorrento. We had to stop a lot or back up to let oncoming traffic pass. I am glad I wasn’t driving. While beautiful, the town wasn’t really our style. It was just filled with expensive hotels, restaurants and tourist shops and we were glad we didn’t choose to stay there. After getting off the bus, we walked down the hill through the tourist shops, had lunch and then took a boat home back to Sorrento.
Another day, we did a similar bus trip to Amalfi and then took a walk to another small town- Atrani. We didn’t get to see much of Atrani because they were filming a movie (Mr. Ripley??). But we did have another good pizza in Amalfi and did some walking up the ravine and along the water.
We stayed at an airbnb a few blocks up the hill in a small lemon orchard. Really nice patio full of cats and we ended up hanging out a lot there. Sorrento had some great food and walking streets and is also a beautiful photographic town. But it has some steep cliffs to the beach.
We did not make a day trip to the island of Capri. It just seemed like another day trip for lunch in a beautiful tourist town and we were kind of tired of that and enjoyed having an extra day of hanging in Sorrento and on our patio. Next stop- Greek Ruins in Paestum.