Sunny Sorrento

Sorrento, May 2010 - Our last full day in Italy with Carrani Tours on the 3-day Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento tour was warm and sunny. After breakfast, we packed our bags, checked out of our room at the Hotel Michelangelo, and left the luggage in the hotel storage area. We had the morning free to explore Sorrento before departing for Rome in the afternoon.

Sorrento's Gorge

Trafalgar Train Tours

I've loved traveling by train ever since my first trip to Europe in the '80s. I purchased a Eurail Youthpass and journeyed from Amsterdam to Rome, to Florence, Vienna, Munich and Paris. In 2010 I returned, traveling this time with Trafalgar Tours on the Contrasts of Europe train tour through England, France and Italy.

Tower Bridge, London

The Isle of Capri

Sorrento, May 2010 - Under blue skies and bright sunshine at last, we departed the Hotel Michelangelo for Marina Piccola where we would board a jet boat to the legendary Isle of Capri. We were greeted at the port by flowers and palm trees, sparkling blue-green waters and the towering cliffs of Sorrento. This was the Italy I had been waiting to see.

Cliffs of Sorrento

Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento

Roma, May 2010 - We'd been travelling through England, France and Italy on Trafalgar's Contrasts of Europe train tour. And this morning we were about to embark on the second portion of our trip, a 3-day Naples, Pompeii and Sorrento Tour with Carrani Tours.

A shuttle picked us up from the Hotel Diana and transferred us to the tour bus that would carry us south from Rome to our first stop, the city of Naples. Travelling along the modern highway, we saw the Appian Way, lined on both sides by rows of umbrella pines. This ancient road ran southeast from Rome, to Brindisi on Italy's Adriatic coast.

We arrived at the port of Naples in the rain, and regrouped with other English-speaking travellers for our walking tour.

Castel Nuovo, Naples

Rome and the Vatican

Roma, May 2010 - We had been travelling through England, France and Italy with Trafalgar's Contrasts of Europe train tour. Now in Rome, this would be the group's final day together.

Visitors line up along the Vatican Wall

Grand Tour Rome

Firenze, May 2010 - We were about to embark on the final leg of our journey with Trafalgar's Contrasts of Europe train tour through England, France and Italy with a short trip from Florence to Rome's Termini station.

Before checking into our hotel, we took an orientation tour of those same ancient sights that had attracted earlier travellers on their Grand Tours of Europe. We drove past the Baths of Diocletian and the ruins of the Roman Forum to arrive near the Arch of Constantine for a tour of the Colosseum.

Arch of Constantine