How to get to the Amalfi Coast From Rome
If you’re looking up places to see in Italy, chances are photos of the Amalfi Coast’s colorful, vertically stacked village has appeared on your Pinterest and Instagram searches over and over again. And for good reason– look how stunning this place is!
Figuring out how we were going to get from Rome to the Amalfi Coast was definitely the component of our Italy trip that took the most planning and research. There are plenty of different options, price points, and ways of getting from place to place and it was so hard to weed out which ones made the most sense for us. I am so happy with what we did end up doing and would recommend it to anyone who wants to pay a visit to the Amalfi Coast during their time in Italy.
Let me lay it out for you:
On the day of travel we took a cab from our hotel in central Rome to Rome Termini train Station and took the train from there to Salerno. After a lot of research, Salerno seemed to be a hub for ferries to Amalfi Coast towns like Positano and Sorrento. So Salerno made sense.
I booked the train tickets through Trainline. For my mom and I the one-way tickets from Rome to Salerno cost €42.00 total. The journey took about 2.5 hours on the Frecciabianca 8873 train which was quick and comfortable and I am pretty sure the train had outlets so that’s a plus.
We spent the journey splitting out time between reading our books and gazing out the window as the olive groves and green pastures blurred by.
Once we figured out the route we were going to take from Rome to Positano, finding the trains was easy enough. On an average weekday, there are 33 trains per day travelling from Rome to Salerno.
From Salerno we had about 20 minutes to cross a few blocks over to the ferry station to get on a ferry to Positano.
If you’re going to do this, ease your mind a little by studying a map of the route from the train station to the ferry dock. It’s not far at all (you definitely don’t need to take a cab unless you have LOADS of luggage or small children) but it is kind of stressful to just be dropped off someplace completely foreign and having to rush to get a ferry. Here’s the route you’ll be walking:
We took the Travelmar ferry which I would highly recommend. At only € 12.00 per person it was comfortable, timely and affordable. But most of all, the views from the boat as we travelled from town to town along the Amalfi Coast was an experience in itself! The boat ride took about 70 minutes.
Get a seat on the top roof deck for catching some sun and photographing the views!
If you’re considering driving your own car, taking a taxi or shuttle bus from Rome or Naples to anywhere along the Amalfi Coast… maybe think again. Driving along the Amalfi Coast is pretty treacherous. Think steep cliffs, hairpin turns and windy, narrow roads… It’s certainly not for the faint of heart. Not to mention if you’re American you’ll be driving on the opposite side of the road AND probably in a manual transmission car. I’ll stick to travel by sea, thank you very much.
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If you want to read more about our Italy trip check out our Rome Food Tour experience, Capri day trip guide, Burano and Murano day trip guide (coming soon) and our full Italy itinerary (coming soon).
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