Depends on where you are staying. We stayed in Sorrento so there is a train line (Circumvesuviana) that runs to these places. We also took the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi and Positano so if you are staying near these towns it is possible to take the bus to Sorrento. If you’re farther down the coast it might be more difficult.
Well our plans got all messed up. It’s raining all weekend at the Amalfi Coast so we decided we’re going to stay in Milan for the weekend.
Good for you! I hope you will give us a trip report during or after the journey. After all the angst, you deserve a great time!
I love Florence and Sienna. It is beautiful and more laid back than Rome. They also have wineries like Verrazano where you can have a wine pairing with cheese (which is always good).
Milan also has lots to see. However, if you are interested, I have done day trips from Milan to:
- Genoa/Santa Margherita Ligure/Portofino and
- Lake Como.
@Momofadult I will!
Here’s how it’s looking for itenerary:
Day 0: hopefully get to the hotel before sunset
Day 1: Pisa and Florence (brutal)
Day 2: Holy Stairs, Colloseum, Pantheon, and a museum
Day 3: open
Day 4: open in the morning, headed for Milan in the afternoon
Day 5: in Milan
Day 6: headed back to Rome
Day 7: heading home 7am
Have you considered stopping in Pisa on the way to Milan? I am assuming that you are travelling by train.
@JazzyTXMom yes I thought about it, but we would be having luggage with us which probably would be a bit awkward. I’ll have to check if Pisa Centrale has luggage storage or not.
Please, don’t miss visiting St Peters Basilica! Absolutely stunning, I could wander all day long… or take a short stop. (I’ve done both on different visits.) Michelangelo’s Pieta, the Bernini altar, the tombs (free, not well known, lower level), ascent to the dome (charge), gardens (charge, must pre-book), etc, etc.
I’m not going back to review previous posts. Perhaps you’ve visited the Basilica before, in which case ignore me.
You have free days mentioned. If the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel are in your thoughts - pre-book now!
Enjoy!!!
Skip Pisa and spend the day in Florence, no question about it. The tower is overrated.
Almost every station has luggage storage. We did this when we stopped in Bologna while traveling from Venice to Florence.
Buon viaggio!
I hope you post a trip report when you get back
We found luggage storage to be the exception except at large stations where it is staffed similar to a museum coat-check. Due to security concerns luggage lockers have disappeared from most locations in Europe. See https://www.italylogue.com/planning-a-trip/luggage-storage-in-italy-train-stations/ to find how to research which train stations offer storage.
We took public transport from Rome to Pompeii a year and a half ago and it worked out really well, although I would spend more time in Florence and Rome and definitely recommend touring the Vatican. We skipped Pisa.
Pompeii was interesting but we had DS who loves volcanoes. Were it just my wife and I we would have probably not gone.
So, thought I’d blog my trip a bit here, at this late hour of 11pm Tuesday night. Left on Monday, forgot to bring my BT headphones, so was scrambling in Frankfurt at the airport trying to find some cheapie headphones. Wound up buying some cheapie no-name brand for 25 Euro (something I probably would have paid $10 on Amazon).
Got to Rome, first tip of the day - buy your train tickets before you pick up your luggage. Luckily, for some reason, there was an announcement that the luggage was going to come out 15 minutes later, so we headed to the nearby ticket booth to purchase our tickets. 14 euro each for the direct trip into Roma Termini. In our haste to get to the train on time, I forgot to pick up a WiFi hotspot from the airport. So when we arrived at Roma Termini, I expected to find lots of places that sold SIM cards. Nope. 2 places, TIM and Wind inside of Termini and I feel both were rip-off places. I would up getting a 2Gb 100 minute SIM card from Wind for 25 Euro. Both places were selling 30Gb SIMs for 35-45 Euro which I knew I would never use up that much. Where’s 7-11 when you need them?
The hotel (which I’ll reveal the name later), we had a hard time finding, because Google Maps said that it was on one block and it actually was on the next block. Furthermore, there was no overhead sign available from far away indicating such hotel. Anyhow, finally found the place after 10 minutes of circling around the blocks, unpacked, then went to eat at a (drumroll…) Korean restaurant nearby, Ristorante Gainn. I was pleasantly surprised how good the bulgogi tasted. In fact, I would rate it better for taste (not necessarily authenticity) than any other Korean restaurant in Northern California and that’s saying a lot. (Maybe it was because I was hungry?, not sure…)
Well, need to sleep now, getting ready for the brutal Pisa/Florence run tomorrow…6am train…Not sure how I’m going to run my every Wednesday meeting, but it’ll be mid-evening tomorrow night. Who knows where I’ll be or what condition I’ll be in…
Love the trip report @ProfessorPlum168
“Where’s 7-11 when you need them?”
THANK GOODNESS not in Italy! 
Have a wonderful time, @ProfessorPlum168 and wife. Cancel the Wednesday meeting and enjoy your vacation.
Glad it worked out. Thanks for your “blog” notes 
Oh, it can be hard to find addresses in Rome. Tip for others renting VRBO - if the host offers airport transportation, consider doing it. In 2015 we paid 80 Euro (?) and were glad we did. There were four of us, dead tired from the flights. There was a bit of confusion about driver pickup place, but it all worked out.
So unfortunately I was too tired to copy/paste my notes onto CC while I was in Italy, so here it is, all 7 days. Very tiring trip.
Wednesday May 1 (Day 1):
Well, I didn’t realize until the night before that Wednesday May 1 was a public holiday, Labor Day. Hopefully things are open everywhere. Today was going to be a whirlwind tour of Pisa and Florence. We took the 6am train from Rome and got into Pisa at 8:30am. Walked 20 minutes over to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Very impressive site, with the Baptistry and the church alongside the Tower. We actually went to 9:15am mass there for a bit. I think we did it right, spending 2 hours was about the right amount of time.
Took the 10:48am train back to Florence and got there around 12:10pm (train with about 8 stops). Walked over to the Accademia Gallery, where we got our skip-the-line tickets and saw the Statue of David. After about 45 minutes in there, got lunch and then went over to the Duomo, where I had bought in advance the skip-the-line tickets to go up the Duomo. Lined up for the Giotto’s Bell Tower, and didn’t see the fine print - no elevator on that tower. The climb up and back down took the wind out of my sails. By this time of the day, the line for the Duomo dome climb and to the cathedral was just way way long. Too many people on holiday over there. Gave up and went exploring the rest of the area. Big waste of $25 per ticket, though I think the regular ticket price was 15 Euro without the skip-the-line, so I don’t think I wasted much. Got back to Rome late, went to a nearby Italian restaurant, Nazzareno, average restaurant, nothing great. Pasta was undercooked.
Day 2:
We decided to do another whirlwind tour, this time going south. Before doing anything, we went over to Scala Santa, where the Holy Stairs is located. We went up the stairs on our knees, it was very emotional. Not many people there at 7:00am, so the trip up (28 steps) took about 30 minutes. Took an early morning train to Salerno, then walked 2 blocks to the ferry and took the ferry to Amalfi. Walked around for 40 min at the shopping area in Amalfi (even walked inside the hotel we were supposed to stay at) and then took another ferry to Sorrento. The whole Amalfi Coast is absolutely beautiful, though I think Amalfi to Salerno portion is a bit more scenic than the Sorrento to Amalfi portion. Now here is where I made a slight mistake - the map showed that the train station looked to be a block or two away, but in reality was at least 2 miles away. That’s because the rail station was up the cliff, past the shopping center. Beautiful area, reminded me of La Jolla. Took the local train into Pompeii, where we spent 2 hours on an English-guided tour, which for an extra 10 Euro allowed us to skip the ticket line (only about a 5 minute wait I would say). The guide was very informative, though a lot of the debauchery info probably could have been a bit more subtle since kids were in the audience lol. Took another local train to Naples, found a non-descript restaurant by the train station (was hoping to find a good Neopolitan restaurant but nothing on the streets to the left of the train station), then finally a late night one hour train back to Rome. All this in one day. I would say that on both ferry rides and the Pompeii tour, it was majority English-speaking.
Day 3:
Started using my 48 Hour Roma Pass today. I thought that the pass would allow you to go 2 out of 6 places (Colluseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Borghese Gallery, Capitoline Museum,etc. but it allowed for entry into the Colluseum and one other place only. The line just to get the Colluseum reservation was way too long, so we went to Palatine Hill instead. Very nice place, explored around there for almost 2 hours. Took the local bus over to Villa Borghese and to the Borghese Gallery, but it turns out you needed to make an advanced reservation, and reservations were about 1 month out. The park though is really nice, similar to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Took another public bus back to the center of Rome where we to Trevi Fountain, then the Pantheon (didn’t know that the inside was actually a Catholic church), to Piazza Navona, and then another bus over to Piazza Venezia. That’s when we found out that our Roma Pass only allowed the one use, when we tried to go into the Capitoline Museum. Decided to have dinner at a Chinese place close to the hotel.
One thing I noticed is that the churches, the Roma Termini, and the tourist spots all had heavy army presence, armed with machine guns.
Day 4:
Checked out of the hotel (Venetia Palace). It was 4-star rated, and I guess it probably is about right. The room was about 200 sq. feet, adequate-sized for 2 people.
We embarked on our 3 hour journey to Milan. In planning for the trip, which we didn’t do any (outside of hotel) until the evening before, we didn’t realize that to see the painting of the Last Supper would require reservations weeks in advance. Oh well. Also, there were no performances at La Scala Teatro to be seen. Or any AC Milan soccer matches. Bad timing.
Unfortunately, for lunch the day before, I had some seafood which apparently caused some gout problems, as my foot became more inflamed as the day wore on. A short walk to the Sheraton Four Points became a problem. Nice hotel, I think it was appropriately rated 4 stars. Bought a hop-on, hop-off ticket and went to Milan Cathedral. Probably the most majestic cathedral known to mankind. It took six centuries to complete. Had dinner at a place called Gino’s outside of the Duomo, but it wasn’t quite like the Gino’s East that I was accustomed to in Chicago lol. Went over to Milan Chinatown. Very interesting Chinatown, much bigger than I would have thought. Not as big as New York or San Francisco, but a bit bigger than say Chicago or Philadelphia. Had to cut the walking because of my foot issues.
Day 5:
Went to mass at Milan Cathedral. So majestic on the inside as well. Unfortunately the mass itself took place in a little space behind the altar. Surprisingly there were only about 50 people there for the 8am mass. It was raining though, maybe that depressed the turnout. After mass, went over to the Sforzeco Castle, where there was a Gelato Festival going on as well. Unfortunately it was raining and the temperatures was in the low 50’s, so didn’t partake in the festival. Went by to the Santa Maria Delle Grazie, hoping upon hope that someone might let us in. No such luck, though the church there was beautiful and there were way more people there for mass (circa 12pm). Went back to Duomo for lunch at a Japanese restaurant. By this time, my foot wasn’t having any of it anymore so we went back to the hotel. But a few hours later, went back to go shopping at La Rinascente next to the Milan Cathedral, where the 7th floor terrace has excellent views of the top of the Milan Cathedral.
Day 6:
Had breakfast at David’s next to the hotel, where the breakfast was 1/3 the price of Four Points. Checked out and took the 3 hour journey back to Rome. Today was church hopping day. First we checked into our hotel for the one night before heading back, Augustus Lucille Palace. I had stayed there before 6 years ago, but unfortunately the excellent Chinese restaurant that used to be on premise was no longer there. Still a nice 4-star hotel though. Our first stop was the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore close by. After that, went over to the Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano. Holy Stairs was next door and my wfie decided to scale the steps one more time.
Day 7:
early 7am flight home. Colluseum looks great without the crowds at 4 in the morning. Wanted to sleep partially on the plane, but 4 movies later, that was a failure. Global Entry was great but still had to wait 30 minutes for the luggage to arrive. Wanted to take a quick nap at 2pm when I got home, next thing I knew it was 11:30pm. So I am going to be jet-lagged for a while unfortunately.