We have spent a good couple of hours trying to find a reasonably priced hotel in Prague, within walking distance of most of the main attractions, which has relatively good reviews on Trip Advisor, and which has internet access. Easier said than done, especially as it turns out that Prague has become the cheap holiday location of choice for drunk Brits. Apparently over 50% of all arrests made in Prague are on UK citizens on holidays - and most of them are arrested for drunken brawling. Smooth. This fondness for the Czech Republic means that its impossible to find a hotel that fits our requirements because they’ve already been completely booked out - and by people who aren’t likely to get further than the nearest beer-hall, no less.

And the trouble hasn’t ended with the hotel. Just trying to book a flight has been a thoroughly disheartening experience. On an unnamed ‘airline with small prices’, which flies the Manchester-Prague route, the price for the same flight on two consecutive days varies as much as £100 per person. Not only that, but once you’ve juggled your dates to come up with a relatively reasonable fare, you’re then subjected to £11.50 surcharge PER BAG PER PERSON, and if you want to select your seats online, you can expect to pay £5.50 PER SEAT PER PERSON PER FLIGHT, or for extra leg-room, £12.50 PER PERSON! Once you realise the injustice of the service (and how much your fare has risen by pre-booking the seats), and you go back to deselect your seats, the website crashes and you have to start from scratch, possibly losing your cheap fare in the process if someone else has beaten you to the ‘Submit’ button. Oh, and if you pay online by credit card it’s an extra £8.40 surcharge.

Rob has been ranting for weeks about how archaic and ridiculous some of the UK institutions have become - whether it’s the government or the banks, the airlines or the post office, he’s not happy with the level of service they’re providing when compared with their equivalent in Australia. For the most part I find it funny, but after today I’m inclined to agree with him. We booked a holiday to Adelaide earlier this year in the space of an hour, with no hidden fees, no problems with the airline (Virgin Blue), no hassles with hiring a car, and no problems with finding and booking a hotel. Now granted we had a bit more time up our sleeve when organizing the Adelaide trip, and it’s not as popular as Prague with the British, but you at least expect “Inclusive of taxes and charges” to really mean ‘inclusive’, not “Inclusive of taxes but you will have to pay extra for paying, sitting, and putting your luggage on the plane.”

We were going to go to Berlin and Paris too, but quite frankly Prague is about all we can handle if booking the other cities is going to be as much trouble as this has been!