Campania trip planner

A travel guide to help you plan the perfect trip to Italy's Campania region: From Naples to the Amalfi Coast, Capri to Pompeii, these are the glories of Southern Italy's Campania region

The Campania region around Naples was the Hamptons of ancient Rome, where the rich built sumptuous summer villas and emperors went to retire.

The province also boasts some of Italy's most gorgeous scenery, from the seductive island of Capri to the singularly beautiful Amalfi Coast and its famed fishing towns-turns-resorts of Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello.

In Naples, you can delve into the 18th-century court of the Bourbons at their royal palace and theater, or pay homage to Caravaggio in one museum and ancient sculptors in another in between visiting baroque churches and sampling pizza in the very restaurant that invented it.

From a base in Naples or resorty Sorrento, you can day-trip to visit one of the most destructive forces in western history, Mt. Vesuvius. A short train ride will take you to Pompeii and Herculaneum, two cities completely buried by the volcano's wrath in AD 79, frozen in time and offering an unparalleled glimpse into daily life almost 2,000 years ago.

To cycle back even further in time, head to southern Campania, where you can wander amid the columns of some of the most intact Greek temples in the world in the forgotten 5th-century BC colony of Paestum.

Featured article

Secret Hotels of the Amalfi Coast & Capri - A few years ago for Budget Travel magazine, I scoured the fishing towns of the Amalfi Drive and the gorgeous nearby island of Capri to find and review a passel of hotels that charge two-star prices for million-dollar accommodations. I came up with nine outstanding hotels and B&Bs everywhere from the fabled coastal resorts of Amalfi and Positano to the vacation hotspots of Capri and Sorrento to smaller villages like Praiano and Anacapri. » book

Around the Bay of Naples

Naples

Naples is a distillation of Italy's glorious chaos, a city where the sun seems brighter, the food tastier (this is where pizza was invented), the traffic crazier, the baroque churches more elaborate, and the people more boisterously friendly. If you only visit Pompeii, you're missing half the story—the ruined ancient city's best sculptures, mosaics, and frescoes were long ago moved to Naples' stupendous Archaeology Museum. Then there are the dramatic Caravaggio canvases in the Capodimonte Galleries, the painted-tile cloisters of medieval Santa Chiara, the fancifully baroque Sansevero chapel, and the world-renowed opera house Teatro San Carlo, where primadonnas were invented (no, really)... » more

 

Pompeii

The famous ancient Roman ghost town buried by Vesuvius in AD 79... » more

 

Hurculaneum

Another ancient Roman city buried by Pompeii, far less crowded (and in many ways more interesting) than its famous neighbor Pompeii... » more

 

Mt. Vesuvius

The big bad volcano that made this region famous when it blew its stack in AD 79 and buried several surrounding cities, preserving them intact for later generations to discover and excavate... » more

 

The Phlegrean Fields

The area along the Bay of Naples where Sophia Loren was born, stretching north and west of the city, is a string of fishing towns, Greek oracle caves, lots of excellent Roman ruins (in Baia, Cuma, and Pozzuoli), and some odd volcanic phenomena (Solfatara and Pozzuoli)... » more

 

Capri

Capri is an island of seduction. It is four square miles of sharp lava blanketed with lush green foliage, white cube houses, and walls spilling over with bougainvillea. This Eden of oleander and jasmine is surrounded sparkling deep blue and green waters and eerily lit sea grottoes. Capri's sheer physical beauty and dreamy laid-back lifestyle has attracted sun-seekers for millennia, from Roman emperors to latter day hedonists... » more

 

South of Naples along the coast

The Amalfi Coast

I wouldn't do this fabled coastal string of fishing-villages-turned-resorts as a day trip. Better to spend a couple of days here—or at least one overnight—relaxing and enjoying the beach life of Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, or Sorrento after all those museums, churches, ruins, and art of Italy's big cities... » more

 

Paestum

Time (aided by centuries of malaria) forgot the crumbling ruins of this ancient Greek city founded in the 7th century BC. Then, in the 18th century, a road crew rediscovered a trio of remarkably well-preserved temples hidden among the weeds and poppies of Mozzarella country along Campania's southern Cliento coast... » more

 

North of Naples and inland

The Reggia di Caserta - This sumptuous royal palace and ornate gardens are the Versailles of Italy, instantly recognizable to anyone who has seen it cast in recent films like Star Wars (Episodes I and II) as the royal palace on Naboo or—filling in for the Vatican both times—in Mission Impossible III and Angels & Demons... » more

Caserta

This sumptuous royal palace and ornate gardens are the Versailles of Italy, instantly recognizable to anyone who has seen it cast in recent films like Star Wars (Episodes I and II) as the royal palace on Naboo or—filling in for the Vatican both times—in Mission Impossible III and Angels & Demons... » more

 

Capua

At the edge of the little town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere in the Campanian interior lie the hulking, weedy remains of the largest amphitheater in Italy after Rome's Colosseum... » more

 

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