Rome Travel Forum

We're going to Italy for our 5 year annivesary in September. We're flying into Venice and departing out of Naples. We will spend 3 nights in Venice, 3 nights in Rome and 3 nights in Amalfi Coast. We're planning to take the train from Venice to Rome and my question is should we drive from Rome to Naples or take the train? Once in Naples, we're thinking of renting a car because we have a cooking class in Ravello and want to see the Amalfi Coast and also visit Pompeii. Since we're doing all those things, we thought it would make sense to rent a car especially if our flight is leaving out of Naples. My husband is a great driver and he has no "fear". Please give me your thoughts if you think renting a car is a good idea or not. Thank you!

There is certainly no need to rent a car to drive from Rome to Naples. You can travel by train in a shorter time than you would take getting out of Rome and into Naples. It's great that your husband has no fear of driving because driving on the Amalfi Coast is not for the faint hearted. By all means rent a car in Naples if you like but there is no need to get it in Rome.

Joining the opinion of Kate.
One important thing: do NOT buy any train tickets in advance overseas, get them at the station. Any railpass offered for Italy is essentially not just a rip-off but does not provide you with any security. You may spend hundreds of $ to get that warm and fuzzy feeling "I have a ticket" - but the railpass won't save you from queuing-in at every train station in order to buy the "reservation" or "surcharge" for better trains. For simpler trains - where there is no surcharge - the pass is an even worse value.

These surcharges are really a killer thing: the surcharge to the railpass is comparable with the price of the stand-alone ticket! (Than why that railpass anyway?)

I entirely agree with Marymimelda (gosh, I don't think I have that correctly, so apologies). You would do much better to take the train from Rome to Naples. Then to go to Amalafi, take the Circumvesuviana train from Naples to Sorrento. This train is a commuter one and runs very frequently and is very cheap. You'll see more from the train than driving. Then, in Sorrento, you can take the bus from outside the train station all the way to Amalfi. This is one of the great bargain bus trips of the world. See my Sorrento pages. You can easily reach Ravello by bus from Amalfi. I would seriously discourage you from driving from Naples to Amalfi. This has been tackled recently in the Naples Forum, if you want to take a look. Pompeii is easily reached by the Circumvesuviana train from Sorrento - get off at Pompeii Scavi and the site is right there. Very difficult to park at the site - this has also been dealt with very recently, either in the Sorrento Forum or the Naples one. You could drive to Sorrento and leave the car and catch the train. However, as the bus trip takes about 1 hour 40 minutes, you can calculate that it will easily take you that to drive from Amalfi to Sorrento - and if you have driven that road once, you might not be too keen to do it more than necessary!!

Pretty strong consensus here! We actually did hire a car for two of the four weeks we spent in Italy. However, there were four of us (making it economical) and we used the car mainly for the week we spent touring in central Italy (Umbria and Tuscany). We did drive to the Amalfi Coast and back to Rome for our departure, but we found the week in Amalfi the car stayed parked. The bus transport was great (and we took the bus/ train into Pompeii. However, parking in all the Amalfi coast towns was brutal...and not worth either the hassle or the cost. You might need to check the timetables carefully though re Ravello (one of my favourite places) as the last bus down from there is fixed so it may not correspond with your cooking class times. However, there is a line up of taxis available at the bus stop, so you won't be stuck. We also enjoyed the walk down from Ravello to Amalfi, along a lovely trail with stunning views. Just under an hour's walk. Also, buy the multi day bus pass (4 day maybe?)...it saves so much hassle. We sat over an hour one day because all the shops that sold bus tickets were closed for 'siesta' (or whatever it is called) and we could not buy a ticket on board! Sounds like a wonderful trip. Enjoy.

Hello there,
the easiest and fastest way to reach Venice from Rome is to take Rayain flight from Ciampino airport to Treviso airport. Its one hour flight. By train you will atleast need 5 to 6 hours to reach Venice.
Bye
Meghana
http://traveller1234.blogspot.com

I would think twice about flying with Ryanair or any other budget airline from Venice to Rome. Stay with your original plan to take the train. As you probably know the train takes about 4 hours and 20 minutes and goes from the centre of Venice to the centre of Rome. If you fly, you have to make your way to the airport in Venice and be checked in at least forty minutes before the flight. With Ryanair you are limited to 15kg check in baggage and one ounce over and the charge is horrendous. So the flight will only take an hour or so, but then you land in Ciampino airport which is some distance from Rome. By the time you claim your baggage and arrange transport from the airport into Rome you will have far exceeded the 4hrs and 20mins you would have taken on the train and you will not have a worry about baggage allowances.

Indeed, flying within Italy rarely makes sense. Stay with the train. You can even use a night train, save on hotel.