Italy! - Day 1 - Essex to Sorrento - 27 Dec 08

What a day! Early morning start to get to Stansted for our 6am flight with Ryanair to Rome. Was a fairly full flight but we managed to get 3 seats for the 2 of us.. always a mad scramble to get on when there's no reserved seating... Was a beautiful flight as well.. over the Swiss and French Alps... great view!

Was a little disappointed when, as we approached Rome, the pilot announced it was all of 3 degrees in Rome (was 30 last time we were here). We were hoping for at least 10, still it's warmer than the UK (just I had only brought the one jacket!)

We were welcomed with great Italian service and efficiency... an hour for our bags!!... and Ciampino is only a small airport! Then, once we had our bags, set off to find our rental car, which we found was quicker to walk to 1km than to wait for the shuttle bus (that came every 5 mins apparently?!)

We got the keys to our car, a White Mini Cabriolet, the only mini in the carpark apparently... yet somehow we managed to get in the wrong car, got our bags in, but then couldn't work out where the key went... was only after 5 mins or so when Matt got back out of the car did we realise there was another mini.. the key fit that one (btw the mini we had jumped in was green and not a convertible... same make though)

We brought along our Satnav from the UK, which was FANTASTIC, made it so much easier to get around... though it was still relatively straight forward to get out of the airport and onto the A1 to Sorrento via Napoli. Felt a bit strange for a while to be on the right-hand side of the road... kept telling Matt off for veering too far to the right!.. and was unnerving not to have a steering wheel in front of me!

Still... we made it.... a gorgeous drive once we got off the A1 through some small towns and around the coast from vesuvius to Sorrento.

Our Hotel, the Grand Hotel Aminta (sounds Grand... but every second hotel is the grand something) was great.. was halfway up the hill overlooking Sorrento and had a free shuttle to take us into town... which was the first thing we did.

Had a wander round the Sorrento streets, where they still had all the Christmas decorations and stalls set up. Was quite a buzz about the place. We then found a trattoria our bus driver had recommended and savoured our first Italian pizza, pasta and cappuccino! Then off for an early night... we were stuffed.