To accompany my post Travel: London to Naples, I thought it might be good to split my travel tales into two parts – one more narrative, telling the stories and describing the colours and scents and sounds, and one that’s more of a fact sheet, if you want to follow in my footsteps and visit the places I’ll be describing. Which I highly recommend, by the way! This way, you can enjoy being inspired and imagining yourself there, but all the info you need is in a handy self-contained section, easy to access.
I’ll also keep the budgeting as bargain-filled as possible, because more leftover money means more fun spending it on something else! So let’s kick off with a short one: getting to Naples, and your transport options once you get there.
Getting There
I’ve recently started using Skyscanner for checking up on cheap flights, and I throughly recommend it. Indeed, I’ll be doing one of my travel app reviews on it soon, so stay tuned for that! So I’ve done a tiny bit of experimenting (and you’ll obviously need to check this from your local airport, lovely international readership), but from what I can see, flights are cheapest, rather predictably, in the winter low season. This seems to extend from November, which has some gloriously cheap flights, right the way through to around March. Interestingly, April/May doesn’t see a huge increase in price – if we take flights from New York as an example, they cost $578 in January, and $728 in May. Not a huge difference for some considerably better weather, if that’s a factor which is important for you.
If you’re touring Italy and want to visit Naples, the city is well-served by its train station – it only takes just over an hour to arrive at Napoli Centrale from Rome Termini, and will cost you about €27 (buy a second-class ticket; it’s really not worth a first class ticket for such a short journey). Check out Trenitalia’s website for up-to-date info.
Onwards to Sorrento
Naples is a fantastic place to stay (which I’ll be covering in a future piece!), but if you fancy doing what I did, and using Sorrento as the beautiful, perfectly-positioned base that it is, you have a few options on how to get there.
Shuttle Bus to Sorrento
Unless you want to hire your own private shuttle (a quick google search will reveal a good number of companies who offer this), check out CurreriViaggi – you can catch one of their buses and ride all the way to Sorrento for just €10, which is a bargain. Plus you’ll get the same views of Naples and Sorrento that I wrote about!
For Staying in Naples Or The Islands:
The CurreriViaggi bus is by far the best way of getting to Sorrento (don’t be tempted to get a taxi; it’s a very expensive way to do it. Arrange a private shuttle if you really want to travel by car). However, if you’re staying in Naples, or Ischia or Capri, you’ll want to get a bus from the airport. Run by Alibus, this will take you to the Centrale train station, Naples Porto di Massa, and Molo Beverello port. Pick it up from outside the airport: as you exit the arrivals lounge, go straight out of the glass doors ahead of you – you’ll see a canopied walkway, which serves as the bus stop. You can buy your tickets on the bus; remember to validate it in the machine!
Tickets cost €4 (€3 if you buy from a Tabacchi), and busses depart every 20-30 minutes, every day, from 0630 to 2340. Journey time to the station is around 20 minutes, with a journey to Molo Beverello taking about 35 minutes.
By sea to Sorrento
There’s also boats from Molo Beverello to Sorrento, if you really want to arrive in style, but bear in mind that Sorrento’s Marina Piccola is at the foot of a rather steep cliff – you’ll probably want to get a bus up to the town centre if you have luggage! For backpackers, there’s also a choice of a gentle walk up the curving road, or taking a short cut and taking the steps up to Piazza Tasso.
Sorrento by train
Sorrento’s train station is ideally situated in the centre of town (and next to the main bus stop, conveniently), and it’s an easy journey if you’ve arrived at Naples Centrale station. There’s 3 trains to Sorrento per hour, for a journey time of around 1hr10 to 50 mins, depending on whether you have a direct train, and are run by Circumvesuviana. Bear in mind though that the train can get extremely busy – I’ve been on it a number of times, and it’s been very rare to get a seat when travelling towards Sorrento. If you’d rather have a seat, it’s a better idea to catch the train at Naples’ Porta Nolana station, a couple of streets away from Centrale: it’s the terminus for the Circumvesuviana line, and far less busy. Again, remember to validate your ticket.
Similarly, Sorrento is the terminus on the other end of the line, so don’t worry about missing your stop!
That Anxious Traveller 