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Travel Information

Getting to the Amalfi coast is not as easy as, say, getting to Vanuatu. You can fly in to either Rome (FCO) or Naples (NAP), but in either case additional transportation is necessary (Rome is about a 3:15 drive from Ravello; the drive from Naples is about half that). See below for more information.

Planes

As noted above, you have two airport options that will get you (reasonably) close to Ravello: Rome and Naples. Both can be reached by major carriers, bookable through the carrier Web sites or using flight booking and search tools like:

You may (or may not) find cheaper fares at the discount providers (most of whom offer only non-refundable tickets), such as:

Note that many companies display "airfare" separately from "taxes," so make sure you're comparing apples to apples. In general flights to Rome are more frequent, and cheaper, than flights to Naples. The trade-off is that you are farther from your final destination once you touch down.

An entirely different approach is to book a round-trip flight on a major carrier to a European hub city and then take a discount carrier like RyanAir or easyJet to the final destination. The discount flights can be incredibly cheap; the downside is that they typically don't fly from major hub airports, so you will have to get yourself from the main airport at which you clear customs to the discount airport, which can be a pain.

For example, easyJet flies from London to Naples for about $80 each way, but they leave from secondary Stansted airport in London. Since you'll land at Heathrow, you'll need to take a taxi or train ride from Heathrow to Stansted (or vice-versa on the flight home).

Trains

If you fly in to Rome you may opt to take a train to Naples rather than driving. From there you can either take another train to Sorrento (and then hop a bus), or rent a car for the much shorter drive (than from Rome) to Ravello.

Rome to Naples
Trains from Rome's Termini station to Naples central (Garibaldi) leave frequently and take 1:20 or 2:20. Information and tickets are available on the italiaRail site. Of course, you'll also need to get to Termini from the airport via the "Leonardo Express," which leaves every half hour. You can find details on the Trenitalia web site.

Naples to Sorrento
Why Sorrento? Because that's where the train goes. Unfortunately, Sorrento is not very close to Ravello. This certainly isn't the most direct route, though it's undoubtedly scenic. The "Circumvesuviana" train leaves about every half hour from Naples/Garibaldi. It takes about an hour to get to Sorrento and is cheap -- less than $5. For more information, see the Circumvesuviana web site.

Once you have reached Sorrento, you can take the Sita bus to Ravello, only you need to transfer in Amalfi so it's a real pain. The Sita bus station is located in front of the exit of Circumvesuviana. There is a magazine shop nearby where you buy your bus ticket, which you will clip on the yellow machine inside the bus (We're sure if this is confusing an Italian will happily angrily show you what you are doing wrong). Here are Sorrento to Amalfi timetables and Amalfi to Ravello timetables (PDF).

Leaving from Sorrento (Sorrento > Amalfi), it'll take around 100 minutes to Amalfi. This is the furthest that the bus from Sorrento will go. To reach Ravello you'll have to take a separate SITA BLUE bus that runs from the Amalfi bus station up to Ravello which takes 20-25 minutes. You have to go through some steep inclines since Ravello is situated in the hills among the mountains, not along the coastline highway. But frankly, if you've made it as far as Amalfi you may as well take a taxi to Ravello -- it's only about fifteen minutes by car.

Just in case you don't understand the timetables above, the towns listed on the top of each section represent the station you're originating from. The towns listed below the 'starting point' are done so in the chronological order in which you'll reach them and the times listed are the approximate times that you'll arrive. Remember to pay attention to what day it is and use the letter abbreviations correctly (F = Monday-Friday, etc).

Automobiles, etc.

You can of course rent a car from either the Rome or Naples airport and drive to Ravello. As noted above, the drive from Rome takes about 3:15 and from Naples 1:30. The final hour of the drive is extremely windy, so bring your Dramamine. The road is also exceedingly narrow; counterintuitive as it may seem, some have suggested that driving at night is actually less stressful because the headlights give you warning of oncoming traffic. It is advisable to bring your own GPS navigation system; having a device you are comfortable using can make navigating much less stressful.

If you don't want to drive the Amalfi roads you can hire a driver to take you from Naples to Ravello. Here are a number of recommended services, including prices that they've quoted us directly:

  • Limousine Service Sorrento
    • Naples to Ravello: 2-person car: €100; 4-person van: €110
    • (0039)3391612081
    • recuomo@tin.it
  • DriveAmalfi
    • Naples to Ravello: 3-person car: €110; 6-person van: €130; 8-person van: €150
    • info@driveamalfi.com
  • Amalfi Coast Limo

Ferries

There is a ferry from Naples (Beverello) to Amalfi (from where you'll need to take a taxi or a bus; see the "Trains" section above) which costs €15 each way. The schedule is exceedingly complicated, and depends on the day of the week and day of the year (the wedding dates stretch across a change in the schedule season, unfortunately). The possible routes are MM2, MM3, and MM4B2. All relevant information can be found on the Metró del Mare web site. Don't forget: European dates are written DD/MM, not MM/DD like in the U.S.

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