Sorrento Cathedral (the Duomo)

How to visit

Sorrento Cathedral — the Duomo, dedicated to Saints Philip and James — sits right on Corso Italia, a two-minute stroll from Piazza Tasso, so you’ll pass it without trying on any walk through the old town. Entry is free, there’s no ticket and nothing to book, just a donation box by the door. The catch is the hours: it keeps the southern-Italian pattern of opening roughly 08:00–12:30 and 16:30–20:30, shutting over the early-afternoon riposo, and it tightens around Mass and feast days. Don’t build a special trip around it — fold it into an hour wandering Corso Italia between the Capri ferry and dinner.

What makes it worth the door is the woodwork. Sorrento is a town of intarsio (inlaid-wood marquetry), and the cathedral shows it off in the choir stalls and the Stations of the Cross, panels built up from slivers of different-coloured wood rather than painted. Look too for the 11th-century bronze doors brought from Constantinople, the ceiling paintings by Neapolitan artists, and — from the street — the detached three-tier bell tower across the way, whose base sits on reused Roman columns. The current building is a 15th-century Romanesque rebuild of an 11th-century church, with a façade that’s actually 1920s, so it reads older inside than out.

Is it worth it?

Honestly: yes as a free 15-to-20-minute stop, no as a destination. This isn’t the Amalfi Duomo with its grand staircase or anything you’d queue for — it’s a quietly handsome working cathedral whose one genuinely local feature is the marquetry, which ties straight into Sorrento’s wood-craft shops you’ll see along the same street. Step in, find the choir stalls, look at the doors, glance up at the ceiling, and move on. If you only have a day in Sorrento built around Capri or Pompeii, you don’t need to make time for it; if you’re staying a few nights and walking Corso Italia daily, there’s no reason not to put your head in.