Andiamo! Citalia Magazine Winter 2023

We absolutely love Italy and over the years have been on city breaks
to Venice and Rome, by Auto-Train to Tuscany, Umbria and the lakes
with a day trip to Verona, and by air to the Cinque Terre and Pisa. We’d
always wanted to go to Sorrento and so decided to make it a special
trip to celebrate our golden wedding.
We first heard about Citalia through Carol’s sister, who had travelled
to Sorrento a few years earlier. After enquiring, we were immediately
in touch with our Personal Travel Planner, Erin Bridewell, who looked
after us from then on. Erin was absolutely brilliant and gave us great
service. She was so patient with us, and offered recommendations in
terms of our hotel, which was in a fantastic location. We would step
out of the hotel and be straight in the marina, and we were just a short
stroll away from Sorrento’s Old Town.
As this was our golden wedding anniversary treat we planned a holiday
for 10 days in total, which was perfect - I mean we could have had a
few more days if you twisted our arms…
Sorrento is quite a small coastal town and so
you might think that you don’t need that length
of time, but there are just so many interesting
places around that it’s worth having a longer
holiday - in fact this was one of the main pulls
for staying in Sorrento.
We took a small group tour in an eight-seater minibus to the Amalfi
Coast one day, and enjoyed a lunch high up in the hills, taking in
Positano, Amalfi town, and Ravello. Amalfi Cathedral was brilliant, and
we had a wonderful day out. There's such spectacular scenery, and the
winding road here is incredible but a little hairy. Apparently, the road
was featured in the last James Bond film, however, we were not 'shaken
or stirred'. Our driver had a fabulous sense of humour, like Italians
often do - laid-back yet lively. At every bend he’d yell, 'Mamma mia!’
and tell us to cover our eyes! We understand that the ferry trip to this
area is also an enjoyable journey and plan to travel that way next time.
We also took a day trip to Capri, taking the ferry and then transferring
to a smaller boat so that we could travel all around the island. We went
up to Anacapri. Back in the 1960s this was the place for the wealthy
‘in-crowd’ and one of the cafés we went to for lunch had many film
stars photographed with the owner on the wall. Today, Capri is more
touristy, but it doesn’t take away the attractiveness of the island.
Apparently, after the ferries leave around 5pm, Capri settles down, so I
think maybe if we did this trip again, we’d arrange a private tour to go
in the evening, or stay a night. Or, perhaps we’d visit the sister island
of Ischia.
We had always planned to go to Pompeii and again, Sorrento was
the perfect base to visit from! It was so simple to arrange too - we
wandered along to the local railway station that had a little kiosk, and
we were able to book train tickets and a guided tour for the following
day. The train journey took 40 minutes, and upon reaching we knew
exactly where to meet our guide.
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