Heading to Southern Italy FRECCE Style

It was a bittersweet morning where we had to say goodbye to our friends Giulia and Sara.  Sad to leave our dear friends, yet excited about the upcoming adventures!  It was time for us to head South to our base of Sorento; to explore the Bay of Naples and the famous Amalfi Coast.  

Our Train Arrives!

We grabbed a taxi and headed to Termini station; the main train station in Rome.  We decided to take the high-speed train or Frecce, from Rome to Naples instead of the regular train.  This shrunk a 3-hour trip into a 70-minute trip; for about €32 each.  When travelling time is money, and we knew we had to be in Sorrento at our AirBnB flat for 4:00 to meet our host. TIP #1: BOOK YOUR TRAIN TICKET AHEAD OF TIME.  We booked our tickets from home in Canada.  Booking tickets in advance also meant we didn't have to mess around with lineups or ticket booths. We had our tickets printed out already, so we could just show up and board the train. 
www.trenitalia.com 
You can also book Frecce reservations on your phone from the Trenitalia App.

Trains in Italy normally work on "Italian Time", meaning they are often late. This is not the case with the Frecce. Your ticket has a platform number, car number and seat number, which you can choose when you book online. The Frecce cars are clean and spacious with lots of room for luggage. We reserved a group of seats with a table in the centre.  There is even wi-fi! The train trip was smooth and enjoyable with a conductor coming by to check our tickets.  Remember: high-speed trains sell out fast, especially during morning commute hours and in the summer!

We smoothly sailed by vineyards and little villages perched on top of mountains, while the train reached a top speed of 310 km/hr.   I 💗 trains!
Before we knew it we arrived at the main train station in Naples: Garibaldi Station. Garibaldi Station in Naples is a modern, busy hub; it is the gateway to the South of Italy.  We had to transfer to a local commuter train that goes from Naples around the Bay of Naples to Sorrento in about an hour.  The train is called the "Circumvesuvianna" because it services all the cities under the great Mount Vesuvius.  To make the connection, you must go down the stairs into the tunnel where the local train departs.  

Mount Vesuvius Presiding Over Naples

"Limoncello Street"

BRACE YOURSELF.  The Circumvesuvianna is an old, rickety train that is absolutely jam-packed with people. TIP #2: DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING OF VALUE IN YOUR POCKETS; wallets, phones, cameras.  Wear a money belt.  Keep your luggage in between your legs or if its bigger-sit on it. We were so squished in on that train that at times it hurt.  THIS IS NORMAL-for a weekday afternoon.  This is just how Neapolitans roll. When a nice man pulled down his lower eyelid at me; I knew it meant to "watch out". He was warning me of thieves working the train. He later apologized to me, saying these thieves were not Neopolitans and that this behaviour gave his beautiful city a bad reputation.  "Trust me," I told him "we have thieves in Canada too"!

Ancient City Gates of Marina Grande

The crowds thinned out as the CircumVesuvianna headed towards Sorrento.  We caught glimpses of The Bay of Naples, Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii and lots of lemon groves. It was such a contrast from Rome-it was electrifying!  I could not believe we were staring at MT. VESUVIUS!!  We arrived at the end of the Circumvesuviana line which is the Sorrento train station at 3:15; so the journey took just over an hour from Naples.  
We have an APP for our phone called "Maps.Me" which is an offline map system that you download onto your phone and you can use it to route yourself to any address or attraction.  You can also "drop a pin" on where your hotel is so you can always find your way back to it.   If you don't have an international data plan-you NEED this app!  Just remember to download the maps for the areas you plan to visit while still at home with access to high-speed wifi.  The maps are big and it takes time to download them.
We used Maps.Me to find our way through Sorrento, down through the ancient Greek gates to Marina Grande where our Marinautica Sea Cottage was located.  We found our little flat just in time to meet our hostess Fatima at our designated meeting time of 4:00.

Marina Grande in Sorrento

The "Marinautica Cottage" was perfect for us.  The main floor was a large eat-in kitchen and living area and washroom, and upstairs two bedrooms and a water closet and a balcony looking over the ocean and the little piazza in Marina Grande that doubles as a parking lot. After we settled in a bit and unpacked ourselves, we found a small store in the little village and bought some supplies for dinner and for breakfast the next day. This store may have been small, but it has everything we needed for a wonderful meal.

Limoncello Everywhere

After dinner we felt restless, so we went for a walk up through the great gates of Marina Grande to Sorrento in search of gelato and a bottle of the famous Sorrento limoncello. Sorrento was an ancient Greek town, and it was the haunt of the fabled Sirens of Homer's Odyssey. It was way too cold out for Sirens tonight. We grabbed a gelato in Piazza Tasso, which is the main square in Sorrento then strolled down Via San Ceasaro which we lovingly nicknamed "limoncello street" because it is a gauntlet of lemon products.  We then popped up to the Corso Italia which is the main street of Sorrento full of fancy boutiques, gelaterias and the famous perfume shop Carthusia of Capri.  We passed by a lovely grocery store on Corso Italia and picked up a nice bottle of limoncello to pop into the freezer back at the cottage.  

Heading Home To Marina Grande Through The Gates

Using our Maps.Me app on the phone we found a backdoor route down to Marina Grande that zig-zagged its way through a maze of stone walled gardens with lemons hanging down at us from over the top.  The sound of the crashing waves of the Bay of Naples and the salt air has made us tired.  We sampled the bottle of limoncello from our little balcony of the cottage and slipped into the crisp sheets of bed letting the waves lull us to sleep.

Our "Research"