Sorrento Warnings and Dangers

The streets are very, very, very narrow! The drivers are very, very, very crazy...WATCH OUT for both cars and motorcycles.

Also careful while walking through the pebble stone streets and going up/down steep stairs.

Pick pocketing is rife all along the Sorentine peninsula. On quite a few occasions, we turned around and found (usually) men stood far too close for comfort and looking rather shady! Take out only what you need and make sure it is someone safe away from wandering hands.

If you travel by rail to Sorrento and have some time to kill in between trains at Napoli Centrale either stay in the station compound or get completely away from it. Like the areas around the central stations of most big cities the square outside is frequented by the more unsavoury section of the population.

If you go to Herculaneum keep to the direct route from the station to the ruins. There are lots of run-down, graffiti-daubed tenement blocks in Ercolano and plenty of the dubious-looking characters that often go together with this type of architecture. We strayed from the beaten path and felt more insecure there than anywhere else we'd been in Italy. The ruins are well worth the visit but NOT the rest of the town.

Without doubt the nastiest person we met during our stay was the guy who runs the buffet/bar/tabacco shop in Sorrento station. Our opinion of him was echoed by other holidaymakers that we met and who had the same sort of bad experience. He obviously hates tourists. The problem is that he sells the bus tickets and being the nearest outlet to the bus terminal thousands of tourists go to him every season. He is rude, unhelpful, pretends not to understand what you want and will deliberately try to sell you tickets that don't correspond to your needs.
The bad news is that he is also the official Sorrento left luggage office. The "office" is the floor of his bar!! - and it's damned expensive.
The good news is that you don't have to buy the bus tickets from him. You can get them from most tobacco shops and, I think, from the train ticket office also.
Avoid the station buffet like the plague.

Reaching Sorrento from Naples is a real task. The road is so viding that eventually you will get sick! Make sure to take motion sikness pills before this trip and do not take alchocol!!! I made a mistake and took some "Limuncello" at a little shopp where we stopped... Oh.... I wanted to die!

The roads are high up on the cliffs, people drive like maniacs, although, they are used to it and they know where they are going, unlike perhaps you and me. Easy to get into accident.
Also, don't go in the hot summer. We were there in July and the heat and humidity was unbearable along with the strong sun in our eyes, it was unbearable to breathe and we got dizzy. May is a good time to go.

If you think the traffic situation in ROME is bad, you definitely haven't been to Sorrento. Cars are seen parked all over the place - yes, even ON railway tracks! You need to possess nerves of steel to drive here. ;-)

The Sorrento drivers also seem to have this marvelous ability to turn a 3-lane road into one with 5 lanes! I'm serious. Don't ask me how they do it - without being fined or penalized by the traffic police. Come to think about it, I haven't had the opportunity to bump into any traffic police in this city. I wonder where they have all gone?

As for the traffic lights, I realized that they are basically put there as decorative ornaments i.e. I don't remember seeing anybody (as far as I noticed) abiding graciously to the traffic rules here. Yeah, I was almost run over by an errant driver. :-(

So do be careful when you're out walking along the streets of Sorrento. Watch out not only for their DEADLY TRAFFIC but also of FLYING LITTER! Some of the residents here (and I saw it with my own eyes!) can throw litter out of their apartment window in broad daylight like they were frisbees.

And some folks here treat the streets like a dumping ground too.

I'm really not joking when I say that I saw a Coke can flew out of a high-rise apartment building window.... and new laundry being blown away from another apartment (window) right onto the street.... and saw a group of women screaming/quarrelling across from one apartment to the other....
plus the (impatient) Sorrento drivers forever honking their car horns...

I had to swallow an aspirin after encountering all of the above.