Grand Hotel Aminta, Sorrento

Here's another cut-and-paste job from my Trip Advisor review. If you're planning on visiting Sorrento, particularly out of season, then I really recommend the Grand Hotel Aminta!

We stayed at the Aminta for four nights in February and have nothing but good things to say. As it was out of season, the hotel was quiet, which meant we were given an upgrade to a sea-view room with a balcony - a great start to our stay. We were greeted by a very friendly lady on reception, with perfect English, who advised us that the restaurant was open until 9.30pm. This was a relief, as we arrived late in the evening and had been worried about being too late for dinner. 

We were impressed that the restaurant remained open, with the full (extensive) menu available, despite the late time and only two tables being occupied. The food wasn't cheap but it was delicious, and the service was excellent - we enjoyed it so much that we chose to eat there again on our last night. 

Our room was lovely - clean, bright and airy with a king-sized bed that was so comfortable I wanted to take it home. The bathroom had a shower over the bath and complimentary toiletries. There was a TV in the room with a couple of English channels and a radio-alarm, which could be used to play music from (and charge) an older iPhone or iPod. Handy extras included USB sockets for charging your phone and a 3-pin plug socket. The view from the balcony was stunning, although it wasn't warm enough in February to sit outside. 

Breakfast was a hot and cold buffet - not a huge selection but more than sufficient and all delicious. The bar was open every evening, with an extensive list including cocktails. All staff - reception, restaurant, bar and cleaning - were friendly, helpful and spoke excellent English (although an attempt at Italian always goes down well!). 

The location of the hotel is one of its major selling points. Located high on the hills overlooking Sorrento and the bay of Naples, the views are amazing. The large windows in the restaurant and bar allow you to look out even from inside, while the pool and outside seating would be perfect in warmer months. 

There is an hourly shuttle bus from the hotel to the centre of Sorrento and back; it breaks for lunch but the last bus back is 11.30pm, allowing you to go out for the evening with no need for a taxi. Alternatively, you can make the 15-minute walk into town, through winding footpaths and passageways - the views are beautiful but it's quite a steep walk back up!

Overall, I thoroughly recommend staying in this hotel, particularly out of season - although I hope to come back again in the summer, when I can use the pool and the balcony!

Check out my short video of our room below.

Sorrento surprise

Two blogs ago, I wrote about the surprise trip my husband planned for my 40th (Magical mystery tour). You can probably guess by the title where we went! (Little did I know this when I wrote my last blog about my worst holiday disaster, The one I will never get over, which happened in the very same place!)

The funny thing is it had crossed my mind when I was going through possibilities but I'd dismissed it. I initially thought it might be Florence. There was no particular reason for this other than I'd taken Lee to Rome for his 40th and it seemed like a comparable option. Then I decided it was Budapest, based on the fact that a few ads for Budapest came up on Facebook, and I thought this was maybe because Lee had been looking up relevant things on the PC earlier. Then I thought maybe Hong Kong for the same reason - although I wasn't quite sure how we'd afford it!

I eliminated Hong Kong, along with several other places, when Lee mentioned we were flying from Gatwick, as some destinations BA only flies to from Heathrow. Someone suggested New York, which worked flight-wise. At some point, I came up with Lake Garda - not really sure where the idea came from but it also seemed like a reasonable possibility. 

Then I got a couple more clues. First was that Lee was thinking of hiring a car. Second was the very approximate leaving and getting-home times. The times immediately ruled out anywhere long-haul that involved travelling east. Car hire ruled out quite a few places - it was unlikely to be an obvious 'city break' destination. There was no way Lee was going to be driving around New York - or Florence for that matter. Lake Garda, however...

I mentioned in my previous blog that I'd done a tiny bit of research. That may have been a slight understatement. I may have searched the BA website for flights that left Gatwick at around the right time and then checked whether there was a returning flight that worked. I may have well and truly ruled out several possibilities, including Budapest, NY and Florence. I checked flights to Verona, the most common Lake Garda airport, but they didn't really work. I was surprised. I did, however, notice that there were flights to Naples that worked perfectly. Of course! It made perfect sense! We went to Sorrento (Naples is the nearest airport) 14 years ago for our honeymoon and have often dreamed of going back. The flights worked, the airport worked, the car hire worked, the whole destination worked. 

That idea went out of the window as soon I checked out the website for the Grand Hotel Capodimonte, the hotel where we spent our honeymoon - it was closed for the winter. We always go away in October half-term and, in places like the Balearics and Greece, it's the last week of the season. The hotel's about to close, lots of bars and restaurants are already closed, and everything's a bit quiet and ghost-towny. I realised Sorrento was also a summer destination so, with all the hotels closed, I found myself coming back to Lake Garda. I have no idea why I fixated on Lake Garda but somehow it just seemed to fit. I found out you could also get to Lake Garda from Venice and Milan. I checked out flights to Milan, which were a no-go, but the flights to and from Venice worked with the timings I had perfectly. We were back on!

I tried to get a few more snippets from Lee to confirm my suspicion. I told him I was thinking about what to pack and wondered what the weather would be like. He told me it would be similar to here but maybe a bit warmer. Tick. I asked about shoes - would we be doing a lot of walking and should I take my walking boots? He said we might be. Tick. I asked him whether I would end up suspending my diet while we were away. He said definitely - where we were going was famous for a particular type of food. Pasta, pizza or gelato? Either way, it fit! Tick tick tick! So sure was I, in fact, that I wrote 'Lake Garda' down on a piece of paper and put it in a sealed, dated envelope, ready to prove to Lee how clever I was.

On the morning of my birthday, Lee handed me an envelope. I took out several sheets of paper. The front one showed a beautiful night-time view from a hotel over an expanse of water. Lake Garda! I knew it! I obviously ignored the back-of-my-head feeling that something about it looked familiar, or the rather obvious outline of Mount Vesuvius in the background - when the next sheet had details of a hotel (the beautiful Grand Hotel Aminta) in Sorrento, I was totally confused. It took me a fair while to work out where I was actually going and to come to terms with the fact that all my detective work had been wrong. Of course, I was also made up to be going back to one of my favourite places on earth - and, despite me being sure I knew where I was going, Lee really had managed to surprise me!

The daytime view

I now have four years to come up with something equally amazing and equally surprising for Lee's 50th. Lake Garda, perhaps?!