When is the best time to visit the Amalfi Coast?

May, June, and September are ideal — warm enough to swim, manageable crowds. July and August are spectacular but very busy. October brings beautiful light and significantly fewer visitors.

Pompeii is available as an optional add-on on the Rome-to-Sorrento transfer day. With a specialist guide, the 2–3 hour visit becomes one of the most memorable experiences of the trip. We recommend it highly.

What happens after I request this trip?

You'll complete a short planning form with your dates, group size, and any preferences. A travel specialist will respond within one business day with a personalised proposal and exact pricing. No obligation — it's a conversation.

8-Day Private Package Journey

Rome & the Amalfi Coast

Rome, Sorrento, Positano & Capri

Available as Private Semi-Private Self-Guided

From €2,960 per person 8 days / 7 nights

View Itinerary

Tour Overview

8 days across Italy.

Two of Italy's greatest experiences in one eight-day private journey: Rome — two thousand years of history stacked in layers visible everywhere you look — and the Amalfi Coast, where limestone cliffs drop into water so blue it looks like the Mediterranean invented the colour. Three full days in Rome give you the Colosseum, the Vatican, and the baroque city without rushing. Three nights on the coast give you Positano, Amalfi, Ravello, and the option of Capri. Every transfer is private, every guide a specialist in their territory, and every hotel chosen to put you where the experience is richest.

Detailed Itinerary

Your journey, day by day.

Every day is designed with breathing room. Sleep in, take a detour, linger at lunch — the itinerary flexes around you, not the other way around.

Day 1

Arrival in Rome

Two thousand years waiting for you to arrive.

Your private driver meets you at Fiumicino Airport and transfers you to your hotel in the historic centre. After settling in, the afternoon is yours — Rome rewards the unplanned wander. Follow the sound of water to the Trevi Fountain, duck into the Pantheon and look up at the oculus, find a table in Campo de' Fiori or the Trastevere neighbourhood as the city transitions from daytime bustle to evening warmth. We'll have our curated list of favourite trattorias waiting at the hotel — places where the cacio e pepe is made correctly and the artichoke is Roman, not Venetian.

Private airport transfer into Rome
Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Campo de' Fiori at leisure
Curated restaurant recommendations for your first evening

4–5★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre

Day 2

Rome Highlights

The baroque city — fountains, piazzas, and the grandeur of the popes.

Your private guide leads you through the layers of Rome that were built above the ancient city: the baroque neighbourhood whose popes and cardinals funded Bernini, Borromini, and Caravaggio with competitive energy. Piazza Navona — built on the foundations of Domitian's stadium — contains Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain, a marble theatre of river gods and allegory. The Pantheon is the best-preserved Roman building: its concrete dome still spanning forty-three metres without support, its oculus the only light source. The Spanish Steps in the late afternoon, the Trevi Fountain by evening: Rome's baroque circuit is inexhaustible, and today you cover the essential stations. The afternoon and evening are yours to explore the neighbourhoods at your own pace.

Piazza Navona and Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain
Pantheon — Hadrian's greatest building
Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain
Free afternoon and evening in Rome

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre

Day 3

Ancient Rome: Colosseum & Forum

The empire that built the world, in ruins you can touch.

Your archaeologist guide meets you after breakfast for a morning in the heart of the ancient city. The Roman Forum is the starting point: a vast outdoor museum of collapsed temples, triumphal arches, and marble-paved roads where senators argued and emperors processed in triumph. Your guide fills in the life that surrounded these stones — here Caesar was cremated, there prisoners were held, that arch was built to celebrate a victory. Palatine Hill rises above: the founding hill of Rome, covered in the ruins of imperial palaces with views over the Circus Maximus below. The Colosseum closes the morning: fifty thousand spectators, skip-the-line private access, and a building whose engineering and spectacle still astonish two millennia later. The afternoon is yours — the Capitoline Museums, the Monti neighbourhood for lunch, or simply the art of Roman idling.

Roman Forum with archaeologist guide
Palatine Hill — founding site of Rome
Colosseum skip-the-line private visit
Free afternoon to explore at your pace

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre

Day 4

Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo overhead, Bernini in every piazza.

Across the Tiber and into Vatican City — the smallest country in the world and home to the largest accumulation of Western art in a single building. Your private guide leads you through the Vatican Museums as they deserve to be experienced: not as a stampede toward the Sistine Chapel, but as a genuine collection whose Gallery of Maps, Raphael Rooms, and Egyptian antiquities are extraordinary in their own right. The Sistine Chapel comes at the end — Michelangelo's ceiling arriving as a culmination, the Last Judgement on the altar wall as the finale. St. Peter's Basilica provides the closing act: the largest church in Christendom, Michelangelo's dome visible from everywhere in Rome, and the Pietà in its chapel. The rest of the day is yours to spend as the spirit moves you — Trastevere for dinner, the Borghese Gardens for a late walk, or a rooftop with a view.

Vatican Museums — Gallery of Maps, Raphael Rooms
Sistine Chapel — Michelangelo's ceiling
St. Peter's Basilica and dome
Free evening — Trastevere or Borghese Gardens

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ centrally located hotel, Rome historic centre

Day 5

Rome to Sorrento

From the eternal city to the beautiful coast.

After a final Roman morning — perhaps the Borghese Gallery or a last walk through Trastevere — your private driver transfers you south toward the coast. The drive passes through the Campanian countryside, the landscape becoming more volcanic as Vesuvius appears on the horizon. Sorrento sits on its clifftop above the Bay of Naples: a town of lemon groves, inlaid wood workshops, and a main street lined with limoncello shops that have been extracting the local citrus for generations. Check into your hotel — sea-view rooms above the bay — and spend the afternoon at leisure: the old town's lanes, the harbour below where ferries leave for Capri, or simply a terrace chair with a glass of white and the bay going through its colours in the late afternoon light.

Private driver transfer Rome to Sorrento
Sorrento clifftop arrival above the Bay of Naples
Old town exploration at leisure
Bay of Naples views at sunset

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel with sea views, Sorrento

Day 6

Amalfi Coast Scenic Drive

The most beautiful road in Italy — possibly in Europe.

The SS163 Amalfitana is one of the great drives of the world: a single road carved into cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea, threading through villages that cling to the rock face at angles that defy engineering. Your private driver takes it slowly — the only correct way — stopping at viewpoints and allowing you to walk through the towns at your pace. Positano comes first: a cascade of pastel-coloured buildings spilling down a ravine to a pebble beach, the terraces planted with lemon trees whose fruit hangs enormous and yellow over the streets. Amalfi itself was a maritime republic of real power, its nautical tables the standard for Mediterranean navigation, its cathedral rising above a broad piazza. Ravello is the last stop: a hilltop village above the coast whose Villa Cimbrone gardens offer the famous infinity terrace — where Wagner finished Parsifal and Garbo hid from the world. Return to Sorrento as the sun sets over the bay.

Positano — cascade of pastel houses above the sea
Amalfi town and its maritime republic cathedral
Ravello's Villa Cimbrone gardens and infinity terrace
Amalfitana coastal road scenic drive

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel with sea views, Sorrento

Day 7

Capri or Sorrento Leisure

The island the emperors chose — or a day that belongs to you.

A day with two excellent options. The ferry to Capri takes forty minutes from Sorrento — the island growing from a blue silhouette to a mass of white limestone cliffs and Mediterranean gardens. On Capri, the chairlift to Anacapri offers panoramic views, the Augustus Gardens frame the Faraglioni rocks perfectly, and the Blue Grotto — a sea cave whose underwater entrance creates a chamber of extraordinarily luminescent blue light — is one of Italy's most memorable experiences. Alternatively, Sorrento rewards a day of doing nothing in particular: the Villa Comunale gardens above the sea, the fishing harbour of Marina Grande, the old Corso Italia with its boutiques and workshops. Whichever you choose, the evening brings the particular pleasure of a final Mediterranean sunset from the terrace, with the lights of Naples appearing across the water.

Optional: Capri island by ferry — Blue Grotto, Augustus Gardens
Optional: Sorrento leisure — old town, Marina Grande
Bay of Naples evening views

Meals: Breakfast 4–5★ hotel with sea views, Sorrento

Day 8

Departure

Italy stays with you — in the ruins, the cliffs, the light.

Your last Italian morning: a final breakfast above the Bay of Naples, a last walk through Sorrento's lemon-scented lanes, perhaps a limoncello at the bar at the end of the street. At the agreed time, your private driver transfers you to Naples International Airport for your departure. Your travel specialist is reachable until you're home — and a few days later will be in touch to hear which moment from the eight days is still the one you keep talking about.

Final morning in Sorrento at leisure
Private transfer to Naples airport

Meals: Breakfast

Where You'll Stay

Hand-picked hotels, every night.

We choose properties for character, location, and the kind of service that makes you feel looked after — not just checked in. Every hotel can be swapped for an alternative if you prefer.

Rome

4 nights

4–5★ centrally located hotel

Historic centre

Walking distance to the Forum, Vatican, Pantheon, and Rome's best restaurants

Sorrento

3 nights

4–5★ hotel with sea views

Sorrento clifftop

Sea-view rooms above the Bay of Naples; the hotel position makes every morning spectacular

Hotels shown are indicative of the standard we book. Upon request, we will provide a detailed itinerary with specific hotel options tailored to your preferences and budget.

What's in the Price

Included

7 nights in 4–5★ hotels (double occupancy)
Daily breakfast at each hotel
Airport meet & greet on arrival
Private airport transfers in Rome and Naples
Private driver transfer Rome to Sorrento
Private driver for Amalfi Coast scenic drive
Luggage handling (1 suitcase per person)
Private expert guides in Rome (2 full days)
Skip-the-line access at Vatican, Colosseum, and Forum
All entrance fees included in guided visits
All scheduled tours and transport as per itinerary
24/7 local support throughout your trip
Hamilton & Chase digital travel booklet with restaurant and local recommendations

Not Included

International flights to Rome / from Naples
Travel insurance (required — we can arrange coverage on request)
Lunches and dinners
Capri ferry tickets and Blue Grotto entry
Personal expenses (shopping, additional drinks, spa treatments)
Gratuities for guides and drivers (optional but appreciated)
City tax (collected directly by hotels, typically €3–6 per person per night)

Good to Know

This itinerary is a starting point — Rome days can be reordered and the Amalfi Coast section extended.
The Amalfi Coast road is narrow and winding; it is always driven by private vehicle and is not suitable for travellers with severe motion sickness.
All guides and experiences are arranged exclusively for your group — never shared with other travellers.
Capri and the Blue Grotto are weather-dependent; we build leisure alternatives into the day in case of unsuitable conditions.
Flexible booking: adjust or postpone your dates up to 60 days before departure at no charge.

Make It Yours

Optional add-ons & upgrades.

Every trip is different. These extras can be woven into your itinerary — just let your travel specialist know what catches your eye.

Pompeii archaeological site

A private guided visit to the Roman city buried by Vesuvius — easily added on the drive from Rome to Sorrento with a specialist archaeologist

From €110 pp

Capri island day trip

Ferry to Capri, guided walk through the town and gardens, Blue Grotto, and the Faraglioni rocks from the sea

From €120 pp

Sunset boat tour on the Amalfi Coast

A private motorboat along the coast at golden hour — the cliffs in the low light, a swim in a hidden cove, prosecco on the water

From €180 pp

Cooking class in Sorrento

A morning class with a local chef: pasta, gnocchi alla Sorrentina, and the lemon desserts that Sorrento invented

From €120 pp

Borghese Gallery morning

Bernini's sculpture in the intimate rooms of a Baroque villa — requires advance booking, entirely worth it

From €75 pp

"Three days in Rome followed by the Amalfi Coast was the perfect combination. The guides made the Colosseum and Vatican come alive, and the coastal drive was simply the most beautiful thing either of us had ever seen. Hamilton & Chase got every detail right."

David & Susan M.

San Francisco, CA · Rome & Amalfi, May 2025

Common Questions

Questions about this trip.

Can we stay on the Amalfi Coast instead of Sorrento?

Yes — Positano or Ravello overnights are beautiful alternatives. Positano puts you right on the coast road; Ravello gives dramatic hilltop peace. Both are more expensive than Sorrento and slightly less practical as a base, but the experience justifies it.

Can I add Florence to this itinerary?

Yes — the most natural extension adds 2–3 nights in Florence between Rome and Sorrento. A high-speed train from Rome to Florence takes 90 minutes. The combined itinerary is one of our most popular Italy routes.

Private Package Journey

Rome & the Amalfi Coast

8 days / 7 nights

From €2,960

per person

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