Sorrento from Naples

Naples to Sorrento by train: the Circumvesuviana every 30 minutes

The train is the easy way to Sorrento, and since 17 October 2026 it’s easier still: the Circumvesuviana, the local railway that runs round the bay, now has a Sorrento train every 30 minutes. They leave Napoli Porta Nolana on the hour and the half hour from 5:30 to 22:00, call at Napoli Garibaldi three minutes later, and reach Sorrento about 1 h 15 after leaving Porta Nolana.

A single costs €4.60 (October 2026). You can buy it at the station or in the UNICO Campania app, or tap a contactless card at the turnstile going in and again coming out. The Campania Express, the tourist train older guides still send you on, has been suspended since 1 October 2026.

Pompeii is on the way, so if you’re doing both, see Pompeii first: in winter its last entry is at 15:30, while the trains back from Sorrento run until 22:00.

Sorrento day trips from Naples: an hour in town, with the coast or with Pompeii

On our day trips Sorrento is one stop among several, about an hour long, so they suit you if you also want the coast or Pompeii that day. The four-town day by minivan costs €76.50 and stops for an hour each in Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. It leaves Piazza Garibaldi, opposite the central station, at 9:00 and is back at 17:00, with an English-speaking tour leader.

The small-group tour with lunch, at €99, collects you from a meeting point in Naples that you pick at checkout, then spends an hour in Sorrento, an hour in Positano and an hour and a quarter in Amalfi, with lunch on the way. There’s a VIP option at a higher price that’s never explained, and the pick-up time appears as 7:30 in one place and 8:30 in another, so check it when you choose your meeting point.

The Pompeii and Sorrento day, at €90, includes the entry to Pompeii and two hours there with a guide, through the Forum, the baths, the brothel, the Greek theatre and the plaster casts. After lunch it stops at a viewpoint in Meta di Sorrento and gives you about an hour in Sorrento with an audio guide, as far as the Villa Comunale. It meets at 10:20 at Piazza Garibaldi 91, by the Starhotels Terminus, and you can cancel up to 48 hours ahead.

What to see in Sorrento: Piazza Tasso, the old streets and Marina Grande

You can walk the old centre in a morning, and Piazza Tasso is where it starts. The square has a statue of Sant’Antonino, the town’s patron saint, and a monument to Torquato Tasso, the poet born here in 1544. The gorge of the Vallone dei Mulini, the valley of the mills, opens just below it, and you look down into it from Viale Enrico Caruso.

Via San Cesareo, one of the oldest streets in town, is lined with shops selling tarsia (the local inlaid wood), lace and limoncello, and it passes the Sedil Dominova, the loggia where the nobility once met. The cathedral of Saints Philip and James dates from the 14th century, with a façade rebuilt in 1924 and doors from Constantinople that are older still, from the 11th century.

The cloister of San Francesco, also from the 14th century, is free to enter, and the church beside it has an 18th-century Neapolitan nativity scene. The hours we found disagree: 7:00 to 19:00 in one source, 8:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 20:00 in another. From the Villa Comunale, the town’s belvedere, you look across the gulf to Vesuvius, and a public lift goes down to Marina Piccola, where the boats come in. Marina Grande, the other harbour, is the fishing village, with restaurants by the water.

Further out, at Capo di Sorrento, the Bagni della Regina Giovanna is a cove in the tufa, the soft volcanic rock, with the ruins of a Roman villa around it. You reach it only on foot, 15 to 20 minutes from the Capo following the signs for “Ruderi Romani”, and there’s no charge and no bar; in winter it’s for looking rather than swimming. Close by stood the villa of Pollius Felix, which the Roman poet Statius described in his Silvae.

Museo Correale: Sorrento’s museum, closed on Mondays and from 6 January

The Museo Correale di Terranova is the Correale family’s old summer house, a museum since 1924. Its 24 rooms on four floors hold paintings from the 15th to the 19th century, the Posillipo school of landscape painters among them, as well as Sorrento’s inlaid wood, porcelain, an 18th-century nativity scene and an archaeology section. The garden has a terrace over the gulf.

It opens Tuesday to Saturday from 9:30 to 17:30 and on Sundays and holidays from 9:00 to 14:00, with the last entry an hour before closing. It’s closed on Mondays, and the whole museum shuts from 6 January to 2 April. A ticket costs €15, or €7.50 for students aged 11 to 25, under-10s go free, and the museum is wheelchair accessible.

None of the Naples city passes includes anything in Sorrento, but the Campania Artecard halves the Correale’s ticket, to €7.50, and it includes Pompeii, which shares the train line with Sorrento.

Sorrento by sea: the ferry from Naples and the boats to Capri

The ferry is quicker than the train, about 40 minutes from Molo Beverello to Marina Piccola, the harbour below the town, and from there you walk up, catch a bus or take the lift to the Villa Comunale. NLG, one of the two hydrofoil companies on the route, charges €18.50 one way and €37 return, €12 for children aged 2 to 12, plus €5 for each piece of luggage (2026 fares).

In winter the boats thin out. Last winter Alilauro, the other company, sailed from Naples at 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:05 and 17:15 and back from Sorrento at 8:15, 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:25, but not on Saturdays or public holidays. NLG cuts back after 15 November, and neither company had its 2026–27 winter timetable out at the end of October, so for a winter day trip the train is the one to plan on.

From Sorrento, boats also cross to Capri all year, in 20 to 30 minutes, with Caremar’s fast boat at €17.40. The SITA buses run along the coast to Positano, €2.50, and to Amalfi, €3.60, and our page on the Amalfi Coast from Naples has the timetables and the winter catches.