Hotel Alpha

We spent a week here on a half board trip with Jet 2. The staff from room cleaning to restaurant to reception and bar could not have been more helpful or polite. All spoke sufficient English to provide an excellent service and any complicated travel or tourism advice was readily available through Martina on reception who spoke English as though she was native to the UK and was a great font of local knowledge. The room (superior) was a very good size, very clean, with great aircon and balcony space for an evening tipple. The restaurant was well run and organised by the helpful head waiter with a good range of tasty local dishes and vegetarian options, plenty of it and very very hardworking and friendly staff. Sadly the coffee was not as good as elsewhere but Pizza there was excellent. The hotel is just a few minutes walk from a Supermarket close to the rail station that provides a regular service between Naples and Sorrento, the latter is a pleasant walk along the coastal road 40 minutes away. The pool at the hotel and the grounds provide a lovely area to relax with good bar service. The train links well to Pompei, Vesuvius and to Herculaneum (Erculano on the train map). Both are a full day trip with a guide, either audio on a phone through QR code, or on an arranged group tour, either being helpful to understand the details. We did the trip up Vesuvius from Pompei and booking in advance online was supposedly essential. This was a 3-3.5 hour trip from Pompei and is an reasonably easy 30 minute up hill walk when you arrive. We used online booking for all through a company called Headout and there communication was good with tickets vouchers exchangeable at each of the venues. The train to Naples (Napoli on the train map) took about an hour and provided access to the Archeological museum by metro or a 35 minute walk. There are different views on whether to visit this before or after going to Pompeii or Herculaneum but a model map there gives a great overview of Pompei. The coffee at the museum was the best we had all week. Food around Naples was well priced and by all accounts very good. Piano Di Sorrento was a small village just a 15 minute walk from the Hotel Alpha and has a fabulous small beach and marina. There was some shade there during the morning. There is a great coffee shop serving on a terrace overlooking the marina. Overall, town areas were noisy and busy but full of interest and activity. Prices for large beers were around 6-8€ and gin and tonic around 10-18€. At the cheaper end at the hotel. We would definitely stay at Hotel Alpha again and the area has plenty to do and see with many organised trips available.