The piccolo is a pretty good heli, it's very similar to the Hummingbird. For some reason, my Hummingbird seemed smoother though so I'd rather have the Hummingbird.

A fp version would be ok. to start with as they are very durable/crash friendly. The downfall is that micros are not the easiest to fly and especially to learn on. I've heard of many nitro flyers that tried a micro and got frustrated and quit. Although it is possible to learn on if you have a decent size area to learn on and/or it's very calm to no wind outdoors where you live. If you don't have the luzury of either of those, you will need to get a bigger heli to have a way better chance of not quitting.

A Hummingbird or something similar will be the cheapest way in though, just get some training gear, make sure your heli is set up properly and get yourself a good hh gyro like a gy 240, it's well worh the extra $, it will greatly increase your learning, greatly reduce frustration and you can use that gyro on bigger heli's later. If you can, get a good simulator, this will also really help your learning process and you can always use it, 3D'ers and pros even still use them to try new things before trying it on the real thing.