A family of Brits, including an 80-old-woman celebrating her landmark birthday, fear they could be left stuck in Italy after the countrywide lockdown was put in place.
Ada Quinn jetted off to Rome with family members, but shortly after arriving at The Crowne Plaza hotel in Rome they discovered the restrictions were in place.
Annette Swinnerton, 52, from Tuebrook in Merseyside, was joined by her cousin Pauline, but is now anxious they won't be able to get back to the UK.
She told the Liverpool Echo : "We flew out yesterday because the Government hadn’t said not to.
"We made sure we had all the correct information. It was only later on once we had checked in to the hotel that we found out.
"We switched on the TV in the hotel room and saw that they had announced that the whole country was now on lockdown.
"They basically told us not to go out and you have to stay a metre away from people - which means we can’t really go down to the dining room as both my aunt and my cousin have underlying health conditions.
"They have shut down the spa and the swimming pool and everything.
"We’re stuck in our room at this point and we can’t do any of the things we had planned.
"We want to go home."
After yesterday’s announcement by the Italian Government, Annette and her companions are worried that their airline will cancel their flight back on Saturday, just as British Airways and RyanAir have recently announced their own flight cancellations.
Annette said: "There’s nobody at the hotel telling us anything and I haven’t been able to get through to Jet2holidays.
"I know that we have been unlucky that we have travelled a couple of hours before any announcement was made by the Italian Government but our Government should have made a statement saying not to travel.
"We were not given any advice not to go so we have come on the holiday because of that."
Currently Annette and her Aunt and cousin have confined themselves to the hotel room while they wait for more information about if their flight home will be affected in the coming days.
A Jet2holidays spokesman said: "We always follow the travel advice of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), who are currently advising against all but essential travel to Italy.
"As such, we have cancelled all flights to Italy (Rome, Naples, Pisa, Turin, Venice and Verona) between now and 26th April (inclusive).
"We are contacting customers who are due to travel to Italy to advise them of their options, and we are also contacting customers who are currently in Italy, to arrange to fly them back to the UK.
"The health and safety of our customers is always our number one priority. We are continuing to monitor the situation very closely and will adjust our programme accordingly. As we do this, we would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding."
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