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previous 15 years or so, prices had dropped heavily across the board. The cheapest return flight to Rome, for example, cost £188 in 1990, compared with £50 in 2007. A budget hotel in London was £26 a night compared with £48 in 1991. The lowest DoverCalais ferry fare for a car plus passengers had plummeted from £308 to £66. The pound was remarkably strong too, having soared through the $2 mark for the first time since the early Eighties, while also buying €1.46. So not only was it cheap to get to places, but once we arrived our spending power was historically high.

Rashly, I attempted a prediction. How long could this boom time for travel consumers go on, I wondered? I gave it a maximum of five years before, I thought, increasing demand would mean that prices would surely start on an upward curve again.

So, what actually has happened? If prices plummeted between the Nineties and the 2000s, how are we faring as we approach the end of the 2010s? Like almost everyone, what I failed to predict was the economic crash of 2008. The key impact of that from a British point of view, has been a much weaker pound. Instead of

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buying $2 or more, you’ll now be lucky to get $1.30, a 35 per cent drop. And the pound has also fallen 25 per cent against the euro. So, in that respect we face higher costs than we did in 2007.

But it is a different picture for several of the prices I had checked in 2007. I tried to match what I had found then for the same services in 2019, and I managed to find even lower fares for several. For example, return fares from London to Paris on Eurostar can now be bought for £58, down from £59 in 2007. Return flights to Sydney cost from £589 (down from £650) and to Boston from £259 (down from £278). Other prices had gone up. A week’s hire car at Pisa airport (£163, including cover for the insurance excess, up from £129 in 2007), a flight to Rome

(up from £50 to £52), return for a car plus four passengers on the DoverCalais ferry (up from £60 to £92) and a budget hotel in London (now £45 instead of £26). You do need to be

SOPHIE BUTLER

VIENNA EXPERT

You have several good operators to choose from. Martin Randall (020 8742 3355; martinrandall.com) is running two tours this year, one focusing on opera in the city and departing in April, and the other, in August, themed around the visual arts and the architecture of

Vienna. Ace Cultural

Tours (01223 841055; aceculturaltours.co.uk) has a similar trip, but this one departs in December, when it may be rather too cold for you.

Finally, Ciceroni Tours Ltd (01869 811167; ciceroni. co.uk) offers a tour entitled The Habsburgs: Art & Music in Vienna – but dates of travel in 2019 have not yet been released. For general advice on sights, recommended restaurants and hotels, see our expert online guide telegraph.co. uk/tt-viennaguide.

PAYING THE PRICESome of the earliest tickets for travelling on Eurostar, below