Gadling

A maid at the Hy-Way Motel near Fairfax City, Virginia, got quite a surprise recently when she discovered that several duffel bags that had been left in one of the motel's rooms were full of exotic snakes.

Twelve of the 17 snakes found were venomous; two had died, giving off an odor that attracted the maid's attention.

The Washington Post is reporting that the snakes belong to a man from Arlington County, Virginia, who was known to keep more than 100 exotic snakes in his home, but had been recently ordered by county authorities to remove them by the beginning of the month.

The man had apparently rented the Hy-Way Motel room for an entire week just to store some of his snakes there.

The man was not present when the snakes were discovered.

The lead singer and lead guitarist of U2, Bono and The Edge, won a protracted legal battle yesterday in their effort to renovate and expand Dublin's Clarence hotel, which they own.

The Clarence, located near the Temple Bar district of Dublin, is one of the city's most famous hotels.

The architect that the two musicians have hired for the $235 million renovation plan intends to completely gut the hotel before expanding into neighboring property sites, ultimately more than tripling the number of rooms currently offered.

The duo's plan had been marred in a 4 year legal battle, as preservationists argued that too many other protected buildings in the vicinity would be affected, including several which now will have to be knocked down.

Ireland's planning board approved the Clarence expansion, but with conditions, including calling for an archeologist to be on site throughout the project.

Naturally, preservationists say the celebrity of Bono and The Edge, two of Ireland's richest men, allowed them to bypass planning laws that would have thwarted anyone else.

Carolyn "Lynne" Meadow, the artistic director of the Manhattan Theater Club, filed a lawsuit against Continental Airlines yesterday, saying a member of the company's flight crew humiliated her by turning her over to the FBI.

The incident happened last August on a flight from Rome to New York, according to the New York Sun.

The Sun reports the story today in a long-winded, blow-by-blow account. Here's a summary: Meadow angered one flight attendant by asking him to be quiet while she slept, she then proceeded to monopolize other flight attendants' time with various requests, and she finally broke an armrest monitor (accidentally, she claimed), incurring the wrath of the flight attendant she initially shushed.

Even that's a little long-winded.

Anyway, the flight attendant accused her of "destroying" airplane property and had the Feds waiting for her when the plane touched down in New York.

She is suing the airline for emotional distress, humiliation and for providing her with faulty flight equipment, the Sun reports.

Continental is not commenting on the matter.

10 tips for smarter flying

Ah, the hotel, that most essential of components when you're having an illicit love affair.

It used to be that cheaters headed to the so-called No Tell Motel, some seedy establishment tucked away down an alley or on some remote road, to do their discreet deeds.

But politicians and other power figures with means usually choose upscale hotels for their affairs.

Concierge.com gives a nod to this fact with its list of the world's 12 best hotels in which to conduct an affair. Of course, the list is somewhat arbitrary, but the criteria are consistent across the board: luxury, big beds and discretion (who's going to catch you in Sardinia, after all?)

Now, Gadling of course does not endorse infidelity. But hey, if you're going to do it, Concierge at least thinks you should do it in style. And who knows, maybe you've stayed at one or more of these for other reasons...

The world's 12 best hotels for an affair

1. Hotel Sezz, Paris
   
2. Rock Water Secret Cove Resort, British Columbia
3. Las Passion, Cartagena (Colombia)
4. Lafayette House, New York City
5. Guana Island, British Virgin Islands
6. The Witchery, Edinburgh
7. The Bungalows at Chateau Marmont, L.A.
8. Su Gologone, Costa Smeralda (Sardinia)
9. Anger's Boutique Resort, Miami Beach
10. Soniat House, New Orleans
11. Angsana Riad Tiwoline, Marrakesh
12. Ivy Hotel, San Diego (featuring king-size bunk beds!)

You can still marvel at the Pantheon in Rome this summer. Just don't be eating any gelato while doing it.

Rome has passed a measure outlawing the eating of snacks at many of its most famous tourist attractions, in an effort, say officials, to preserve the city's treasured monuments.

The snack ban went in effect this past weekend, and will last through October.

For travelers, this came as a shock, since many choose to buy food at street vendors or markets on the go rather than sit at many of the expensive cafes that have set up shot near Rome's most popular attractions.

"You don't want to sit at that place," Kristin Benner of Annapolis tells the Associated Press, pointing to one of the cafes near the Pantheon. "And if you have signs, police and benches, isn't that taking away from the monuments more than drinking near them?"

Rome is also cracking down on drunks -- banning them, too -- and is prohibiting homeless from sleeping near tourist attractions.

It seems cities across Italy are really cracking down lately on things deemed to take away from the tourist experience, even as though they claim it is for the good of buildings, monuments and other sites.

Venice has banned picnics and bare torsos in St. Mark's Square (not to mention pigeon feeding); Florence is targeting the men who wait with squeegees to wash the windows of cars idling at traffic lights.

Rome also recently passed a law cracking down on street vendors.

Now here is one court ruling that pretty much any traveler could get behind.

According to the German news weekly Die Zeit, Germany's Supreme Court, the Bundesgerichtshof, recently ruled that airline passengers traveling home from a holiday are entitled to a full refund of the cost of their trip if their plane crashes or comes close enough to crashing to have caused passengers fear and stress -- thus ruining the relaxation won on said vacation.

Obviously if a plane crashes, more than likely there won't be many refunds to hand out. But it's the latter condition that is interesting here.

I'm not talking a refund of airfare. I'm talking a refund of everything that was spent on the holiday. Many German tourists book vacations through packages that include airfare, so this means they'd be entitled to a refund of the entire package.

Now, a court in the town of Duisburg must decide whether this ruling from the high court has any bearing on a case it is currently hearing involving a German couple whose plane home from Turkey had to make an emergency landing in Istanbul three years ago.

The couple's plane malfunctioned shortly after taking off from Antalya. The couple says the plane's door almost opened, pieces of the cabin's ceiling starting coming down and the plane had to do a corkscrew landing in Istanbul.

The couple was on a two week Turkish vacation -- some say Turkey is Germany's 17th state -- from a German packager called Alltours.

Alltours gave the couple around $430 for the delay they suffered. The couple sued for their entire package to be refunded, saying they lost all the peace and rest they'd built up during their two weeks by the pool.

The Duisburg court must decide whether the couple really thought they were going to die, which could bring the matter in line with the high court's ruling.

But there are a few questions that go unanswered in the article, including why the high court bothered to rule on this in the first place. Had another lawsuit like this reached it? And also, isn't this a stupid ruling? I mean, what if the packager was from the U.S. or U.K.? Can a German court compel a foreign company to pay up?

What if you weren't on a package, and didn't keep receipts?

However, it's a nice thought, isn't it? Imagine coming home from the Caribbean or Disney or what have you, hitting unusually bad turbulence, maybe even making an emergency landing of sufficient drama and getting the cost of your vacation refunded because you now feel, you tell people, so frazzled it's like you never went on vacation at all!

10 tips for smarter flying

Gotta hand it to the Brits: They know how to go crazy when on vacation.

A group of British women are facing prostitution charges after they took part in an oral sex competition on the Greek island of Zakynthos this past weekend, according to eTurboNews

Nine women received money to "perform" in the competition, which was recorded and posted on the Internet.

Another six British men and six Greek men (two of whom owned the bar) are also facing charges of "encouraging obscene behavior," eTurboNews says.

Zakynthos has the reputation of being pretty full on when it comes to its party scene, not unlike Majorca and Ibiza.

The competition took place on Leganas beach, with is in the south of the island.

No word on who won it.

One of the reasons I have a fear of amusement parks is because of a story like this.

Yesterday, a jam-packed amusement ride at a Swedish theme park collapsed, injuring nearly 20 people, many of who were children.

The collapse happened at the Liseberg theme park outside Goteborg, in western Sweden. The ride was a spinning arm-and-seat combination.

Swedish authorities tell the Associated Press that a malfunctioning ball bearing was behind the collapse. The ride had been checked for safety in the spring, and nothing at that time was found to be amiss.

Twenty-five ambulances responded to the scene.

Liseberg is Scandinavia's largest amusement park, with 30 different rides, the AP says.

Earlier this year, I happened to be in Zuerich and staying at a rather nice hotel. Not top-of-the-line, Ritz or Four Seasons level but some place still charging north of $300 a night. In other words, not a place I would stay at all the time.

Needing to get some work done, I shuffled downstairs and asked about the hotel's wireless connectivity. Yes, there was wireless. Cost: $45 for 24 hours.

Should expensive hotels (or even moderately priced hotels) charge for Internet?

Now, I'm not launching into some annoying, techie talk about how free WiFi is a right. I don't think Internet access is a right. I'd expect to shell out for it at a cheap place on the grounds that one gets what one pays for.

But for places charging $200, $300, $400, $500 a night and up to tack on another $20 or $30 for Internet just makes me feel like my business isn't even appreciated. I almost hear them saying: We're going to squeeze every last penny out of this guy. Worse, they'll think I'm on expenses, which I sometimes am, so they're really thinking I won't care about the principle of the matter because they're sticking it to a faceless corporation.

O.K., let me pull back here.

I tell my friends how annoyed I was that upon graduating from college, my esteemed university charged me $150 for my diploma. My school charged tens of thousands for tuition, I say -- they just couldn't throw in the diploma as a way of saying thanks for my business? I guess this same conceit goes with my problem with pay-to-play Internet at upscale hotels. I mean, they are already overcharging for the room and all that comes with it ($22 burger!). Couldn't they just throw Internet in? Hell, fold it into the cost of the room. Then I'd at least think I was getting something for free.

But reading Joe Brancatelli's latest column at Portfolio.com has at least given me a few things to think about.

Brancatelli tackles just this issue. He says that the cheaper hotels are the ones that will always offer free WiFi, because they see that as their main selling point. In contrast, the luxury brands figure you're staying for other reasons. I hadn't thought of it like that. It still seems a little contrary: you'd think the budget places would not want to be saddled with the cost of Internet without getting money for it, whereas Marriott can afford it.

And I didn't really know how much hotels actually pay for high bandwidth Internet. Brancatelli gives some numbers, and they're not insignificant.

On balance, it still annoys me to be charged for Internet at nice places, because it's the amount these hotels charge. I mean, $5, $10 -- I could live with that. But charging at such a mark up above what I can get at home?

Read Brancatelli's column. What do you think? Hotel WiFi -- fee or free?

If you're heading to Prague this summer, one of the first things you'll notice when arriving at Ruzyne Airport is the number of car services competing for your business.

Prague's airport is not serviced by the city's subway network, though talk is ongoing about eventually extending it. If you go the public transportation route, that means a bus, usually the 119 that takes you to end station on the green, or A, subway line.

But there are other options. Bohemia Prague Airport Transfers is one. The company recently contacted Gadling to tell us a bit about their efforts to corner the market to and from Prague's airport and train stations. The outfit runs a fleet of cars and vans around the clock and can accommodate one to 16 travelers.

We took a look at the company's Web site, which is professional looking, with rates clearly shown, and the fact that you can book cars ahead of time does make Bohemia Prague an attractive option.

I've used the service once before, for a visiting family member a couple years ago, and it worked fine. I'd definitely recommend it if you're arriving at the airport and happen to be staying in a location out of the city center.

But Bohemia Prague's claim to be the official transport to and from the airport and train stations is a little overstated. They're not the only game in town. And be a little leery of the fact that, as advertised, the company charges a flat rate for anywhere in Prague. That's usually a sign that you'll be overcharged if you're heading to the prime tourist spots.

Their rate from the airport -- 550 koruna or $32 -- isn't bad, and perhaps it's even cheap compared to other European capitals. But you can also hail a yellow AAA taxi -- they're everywhere outside the airport -- which use meters and direct routes and will end up costing less than 550 koruna, especially if your destination is the Mala strana side of the river.

And of course, if you have time on your hands or are particularly budget conscious, the public transport connection isn't really that bad, and will wind up costing you about $3 for a 20-30 minute journey to the Dejvicka metro, which has rapid connections to the rest of the city.

In reviewing Bohemia Prague's rates, the one thing I'm compelled to say is do not contact them -- or any other taxi or car service, for that matter -- for transport to and from Prague's train stations. Folks, Bohemia Prague's 370 koruna ($21) set price for one way travel is a rip off, especially from Prague's main train station.