Wouldn't reccomend staying here as the area is really rough with lots of street crime and loads of dodgy people hanging around, the Roman ruins are of course fascinating and well worth a visit, we spent about 7 hours there and still hadn't seen it all, but as regards accomodation my advice is stay away from the actual modern town and maybe think about somewhere like St Agnello or Sorrento.

Sliema2

If you stay in Sorrento you can get the train to Pompeii, it's very, very easy and they speak English in the ticket office. The train back has Sorrento on the front of it. Take a packed lunch with you and plenty to drink and don't forget the comfortable shoes. Don't forget about Herculaneum which is much smaller but more intimate.

Many thanks for the advice. Sorrento looks like a possibility.

Don't know if this helps but we have researched hotels until we are blue in the face - the cheapest we've found is the Admiral in Sorrento via Thomsons.

In the past we have foud that Sorrento is great - the best way to do Pompeii from Sorrento is on your own steam via the train and then do it yourself!

The Bay of Naples area is beautiful, but not Naples itself. If you are new to the area, get off the plane and stay somewhere else. Its not a particularly nice city, crime ridden and grotty in a lot of places. If you want to see Pompeii, stay around Sorrento as like other people have already stated, its very easy and cheap to visit by train from Sorrento. The train stops right outside the entrance. If you do go, make sure you take plenty of water as you will need it if its very warm. Pompeii is an awesome place and well worth visiting, as too is Herculaneum. You can visit Herculaneum by train easily too, but keep your wits about you as the new town of Ercolano is not the best area in the world either. Sorrento itself is very safe and a great base to vist the Bay of naples and Amalfi Coast. There's plenty of thing to see in Naples but dont go there without doing plenty of research first.

Hi
We went to sorrento last year and stayed at a place called Nubedargento. It is a campsite which has 'bungalows' which are self catering they are quite reasonable. The site is about half a mile from the center of Sorrento, and is ok but basic. While there we were drinking in a place called Chaplins which is an Irish bar owned & run by a lovely Italian couple. They have two appartments in the center of sorrento but I am not sure how many they cater for. We are staying in one of their appartments in September so if you like I will check. I wil post a report when we return which will be the first week in October. Sorrento is an ideal place to stay as it has bus, train & sea connections to Pompei, Naples, Capri and many other places. Pompei is brilliant as is the whole area which is why we are returning.

We stayed in the Cilento area, sout of Naples in a self catering apartment booked through:

http://www.summerinitaly.com/

We stayed in Santa Maria de Castellabate, which was a lovely little seaside place. Pompeii is possible as a day trip from there as are the ruins of Paestum and the Amalfi coast. The Cilento is a lovely and relatively unspoiled part of Italy.

We actually did a week touring, followed by a week in the apartment. We stayed in a motel 5 minutes walk from Pompeii's entrance. The hotel is used by archeologists and is fairly basic but clean and cheap.

http://www.villadeimisteri.it/

We also stayed at a lovely hotel in Sperlonga, which is midway between Rome and Naples. We stayed in the Aurora Hotel, in a room overlooking it's own stretch of beach. It's a pretty resort with a golden sandy beach and an interesting old town with winding streets on the headland.

http://www.aurorahotel.it/

Those links are very helpful. We are looking considering where to stay next year as we plan a trip to Pompei etc and don't want to spend too much of our time travelling as we will be on a city break so time will be limited.

Any tips on the best places to stay at good prices? Is it expensive to eat out in Sorrento?

Thanks

We found eating out in Sorrento to be very reasonably priced even in some of the more exclusive places and oh so yummy, the expensive bit was drinking in bars etc, although we found some pretty cosy little un- pretentious places that were much less expensive and worth visiting especially Il-Doglio Pub in the drains (spelling might be wrong due to excessive grappa, limoncello, and nastro azzuro intake) this was a great little place with friendly owners, good selection of drinks, and fabulous fresh pizza's that were great for a day time snack, they also had an Italian singer caleed Tonino who did acoustic sing a longs every night, as much as you may not want to take part it is hard not to, even Mrs Sliema2 who freely admits that she can't sing a note was merrily singing a long.

Have fun
Sliema2

Can I just echo what everyone else has advised re-Naples.

I was there last year for 3 nights and it's a scary place! We witnessed
-a tourist having her bag snatched on a busy street in the afternoon,
-rubbish piled high,
-rats in the street,
-some punter following us from the square one night (God knows what he wanted?),
-being called a "sonofa b*tcha" by a tramp for not letting him carry my case

Not a place for any family.

Although, fantastic pizza & cheap as chips too....in fact, cheaper!

Yes fully agree on Napoli, not a good place to be at all, such a shame it could be fantastic, but too much crime, to many dodgy people, to many spaced out druggies out side the main station at Piazza Garibaldi, and scooter bag snatchers, great pizzas and views of vesuivius though, but overall best avoided unless you are very brave or crazy or both.

Sliema2

Just logged back in to this site after a while and see there are more responses to my initial query. Very useful and many thanks.