UK surfer books online for a not so magical mystery tour

Despite every attempt to seamlessly integrate fool-proof modern technology into our lives, Kate Rogers, a nature trust worker from Hereford, has managed to single-handedly expose the greatest weakness of the internet - human error - to such a degree of foolishness as to make the national press.

And Kate didn't suffer alone. Having never been abroad before, groundsman Michael Brown entrusted his girlfriend to book return flights to Spain, not knowing just how wrong Kate could go when booking flights on Ryanair's website.

Michael told the Mirror: "I was really excited by the time we got to the airport. We checked our flight on the board and on the baggage tags, and both had the letters GNO, which we thought stood for Gerona"

But, instead of arriving at Gerona, 70 miles from the beautiful Catalan capital of Barcelona where they had booked hotel accommodation, the couple found themselves in the industrial heartland of northern Italy.

On leaving Genoa airport the couple still hadn't noticed their mistake. In fact they remained in blissful ignorance for several hours - even assuming the Italian flags that adorned the local buildings were evidence of a proliferation of ice cream parlours.

In retrospect the couple didn't even flinch when told by the pilot they were flying in over Milan, but rather passed it off as a circuitous, but plausible, route.

According to the Mirror, only when they were ejected from a bus for trying to pay in pesetas did the penny drop. However, the final indignity for the hapless couple came as Michael gave in to his growing suspicions and asked another English couple what country they were in.