London Toolkit 
Paris Toolkit Sorrento local buses beyond Amalfi
Buses running around town to Amalfi, Positano and Sorrento Peninsular
Sorrento bus and train
Public transport from Sorrento is very good, there is no reason why you cannot explore the region cheaply and reliably at your own pace.
Sorrento is the main hub for all public transport that radiates out from the town's train station where the buses also terminate.
The bus station (really just a handful of parking bays) is on the railway station forecourt in the town centre. There is minimal information so it pays to prepare and know which bus you want in advance.
Public transport options from Sorrento
Public transport can be divided into 4 categories from Sorrento:
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Orange town buses run by EAV that operate a Sorrento town service (lines A to E) including the port and a few miles each way along the coast from Sorrento.
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The SITA bus service that links Sorrento to Positano and Amalfi that is popular with tourists, is relatively high frequency. The drive along the south coast of the peninsular is a highlight of many visitors stay and is an attraction in itself.
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The SITA local bus service links Sorrento with outlying villages on the peninsular. Timetables require study and can be erratic but are well worth the effort to get out and about and visit the villages and experience the network of walks between villages through the lemon groves that are delightful.
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The Circumvesuviana train line that dominates transport along the northern coast from Sorrento towards Pompeii and Naples. This is covered on our dedicated Circumvesuviana Naples - Sorrento train service page
Fares and tickets
The tickets and fares themselves are regulated by a regional organisation called Unico Campania. Nearly all public transport operators in the region (of which there are many) come under Unico Campania. As a result the good news is that you can buy passes and multi-day tickets valid across all public transport options as far away as Naples.
You can buy tickets at tobacconists and newsagents and some bars as well as the train stations.
At Sorrento Station in particular the station newsagent has all the ticket types explained in English and do their best to give travel advice in several languages, with a smile, in stark contrast to the station ticket office.
They also layout clearly in English the various multi-day passes on a board plus the fares to the most popular places tourists want to go.
The tourist office has timetables available and hopefully your hotel will also help you in this respect, though their knowledge varies a lot from hotel to hotel.
The tickets and fares themselves are regulated by a regional organisation called Unico Campania. Nearly all public transport operators in the region (of which there are many) come under Unico Campania.
You can buy day passes and multi-day tickets valid across other transport.
On the buses you have to put your ticket into a machine inside the bus and it stamps the ticket with the current time.
The shortest single bus journeys have a validity of one hour from the time you stamp the ticket. Your ticket is not valid until you do this, travelling with an unstamped ticket is treated as if you travel with no ticket.
The fare is driven by the transport zones you need to travel through.
From Sorrento travel in the local area requires a zone E1 ticket, for journeys on the peninsular further out than Massa Lubrense to places like Sant Agata. Positano or Amalfi.
Ercolano or Pompeii is an E3 zone ticket and Naples a E5 zone ticket. For Naples there is another ticket zone/grade, U5 that includes access to Naples city public transport on a day ticket.
Click through on the fares link below for current fares and passes. Either select your ticket grade from those listed above or enter your required journey and all the prices of all the ticket types available will be displayed.
Sorrento timetable links
Orange town buses
Orange town buses provide a regular service, approx every 20 minutes, on four routes including Marina Piccolo (Ferry Port) to the Square (Piazza Tasso) thus avoiding a steep ascent or descent by foot. The service runs between around 7am and 10pm.
Another service attractive to visitors runs between Massa Lubrense and Sant'Agnello along the coast road through Sorrento and starts earlier and finishes later than the port services.
All services interconnect at Piazza Tasso in the centre of town.
City Sightseeing Sorrento to Amalfi via Positano
From April to October there is an alternative to the crowded public SITA buses that ply the most bus route from Sorrento along the dramatic south coast to Amalfi.
City Sightseeing, whom operate the open top sightseeing buses in Sorrento, also operate a scheduled service between Sorrento and Amalfi stopping at Positano in competition with the SITA bus.
The service broadly runs at an hourly frequency and is scheduled to take around 90 minutes to do the whole trip.
You pay a premium over the public bus service. This is not a hop-on, hop-off service but has a commentary.
Sorrento sightseeing tours
In Sorrento itself there are several sightseeing options you will regularly see during your stay during the summer season covering Sorrento itself and the local peninsular. These are:
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City Sightseeing Sorrento - a classic hop-on, hop-off open top sightseeing bus. The service is pretty much the same principle as most tourist city operations, the operator here runs the hoho buses in Naples and Rome too. A single route covers the Sorrento town, including Sant'Agnello and the villages and countryside on the peninsular.
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Sorrento City Train - a novelty mini-train. From Piazza Tasso, from a tourist perspective the centre of town it does an orientation circuit around Sorrento and Sant'Agnello including the port.
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The Green Line Tram Tour - is similar to the Sorrento City Train in many aspects but the more robust vehicle extends the tour out into the countryside around Sorrento and the underlying emphasis is more towards a serious tour than just a fun novelty ride.
