Ryanair - RYR > Reviews > Liverpool to Italy with Ryanair

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality	Excellent
Customer Service	Friendly and attentive
Punctuality	Always on time
Space	Fairly Comfortable
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	low cost, easy to book, online booking, great destination
Disadvantages:	awful decor

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Once you get over the shock of the blue and yellow interior, flying with Ryanair can be an unexpected joy.

Like many low-cost airlines Ryanair have cut out the frills to give its travellers a range of destinations at prices which won't break the bank. This Springtime my daughter and I took advantage of £10 flights and headed to Italy from Liverpool.

The adverts did say that it was Milan we were heading to but in truth we were almost one hour away from Milano and landed at Orio airport, close to Bergamo.

Booking the flights could not have been more simple or carbon friendly. All searches and bookings can be made via the website - which is in fact the preferred means of booking - and the confirmations sent to our email address. By travelling with only hand luggage we were able to check in online before leaving home and even benefited from priority boarding as a result.

The beauty about using smaller airports is that one ends up visiting somewhere they would previously have overlooked. Bergamo is a beautiful and compact city, with a walled medieval, yet perfectly intact town sitting atop of the more modern suburbs. Landing at Orio gives you perfect access to Lakes Garda and Como, ski resorts and summer Alpine walking, towns and even Milano itself.

On the flight, which is a short European hop, the stewards sell bus tickets to Milan and offer all the same facilities we have come to expect on such a short journey. Depending on the time of departure (in which Ryaniar do have some fantastic travelling times) you can get a range of food and beverage options and flick through the in house magazine - perfect for planning your next jolly jaunt.

Like all the low cost airlines, Ryanair operates on a speedy turnaround so you are expected to look lively when you board and disembark, though obviously those who struggle are given the greatest amount of attention and aided on and off board. You will also be expected to clean up after yourself, which in fairness is something we should all be doing as a matter of course. I would recommend Ryanair to anyone.

I just wish they would bring back the Liverpool to Inverness route. Thanks to that route (in which you basically have just enough time to knock back a dram of whiskey between take off and landing), I have enjoyed salmon fishing, a ceildah barn dance, walks along the Moray Firth coastline, a much needed chill out with my greatest female friend and even witnessed Henry the Osprey feed fish to his off-spring. Instead, the nine hour drive almost put an end to my hogmanay celebrations this year.

Now stop reading this and head off to ryanair.co.uk to see where you could be this weekend