Pompeii - Naples or day trip from Rome?

[kaleykate]

Hi again.
We're just finishing up the planning for our trip to Europe and we can't decide what to do with our extra two days. We want to see Pompeii for sure and we've heard that Sorrento and Capri are nice as well. We have heard (mostly from this site) that Naples isn't a nice place to stay at all. So our question is if we should stay in Naples to see Pompeii and possibly Sorrento, or if we should just do Pompeii as a day trip from Rome. Maybe another possibility would be to stay in Sorrento and see Pompeii and Capri as well? We're really unsure about what to do. Preferably as cheap as possible, but we don't want to miss out on anything just because of the financial issue. Any opinions or advice would be awesome!
Thanks again.
Kate & Kaley

[Madam Trashheap]

Hi K&K,

Sorrento and Capri are gorgeous, as are any towns/islands on the Amalfi Coast, include the much-lauded Positano (hey, you know it's also the name of a sandwich in Italy?!!)

If you're on a budget, it's easy enough to do a day trip to Pompei from Rome by train, then you can do a self-guided tour through the ruins with one of the audio-guides available next to the ticket desk.

If you want to spend the night on the coast as a treat, you could stop off at Pompei on the way to stay in Sorrento (or Positano, but that's a little more expensive accommodation-wise). You didn't say where you're flying out from, but if it's Rome then that's easy enough to deal with, just allow enough travel time back for flights.

Naples is a great city to visit, but yeah, not so fab to stay in overnight. Great pastries, musuems and incredible churches of San Gennaro (including vials of dried blood) and Sansevero Chapel(v lifelike statue called the Veiled Christ).

Hope that helps, I'd just grab a map and check out some pictures on some sites.
Have fun
mdm TH ;D

[Kim]

mdm TH,

Just wanted to say it's always great having you drop by - you always give such good advice to future travellers.

Kim