What was once a traditional Dales inn has been transformed into a modern hotel-cum-gastro pub with the help of local craftsmen. The CB Inn is named after Charles Bathurst, lord of the local manor when it was built in the 18th century. From the outside, not a lot seems to have changed since then, aside from a fresh splash of white paint, but inside it is very different. The hotel’s A4 piece of paper warning tourists to be careful lists nine things to watch out for; I would add a 10th: beware of taxi drivers.Virginia Eastman is Consumer Affairs Correspondent for BBC2’s ‘Working Lunch’. We’re used to being figuratively robbed by taxi drivers, who go around the houses or charge foreigners three times the going rate, but this one did not even bother with subterfuge.

The Sherlock Holmes school of deduction says: “Remove the impossible and what’s left, however unlikely, is the reality.”The audacity of it took our breath away. While Martin and I slumbered in the back, the suddenly animated taxi driver must have leaned forward and slipped the cash out of John’s top pocket as he peered to his extreme right It was the only possible answer. We hadn’t rubbed shoulders with anyone in an empty street or been brushed by passers by We’d got straight into a taxi after picking up the money. I marked time on the pavement, wondering if all taxi drivers in Barcelona were this sanguine about being paid by foreigners who have to go to the ATM to get the cash It took some 10 minutes – meanwhile the meter was off. We paid him and disappeared to the comfort of our hotel, John still incredulous that this could happen to a New Yorker.A night’s sleep and sense of humour regained: over breakfast the same thought occurred to us all Whodunit? It had to be the taxi driver There wasn’t anyone else. We explained to the taxi driver (who seemed to be totally uninterested in our plight and not at all concerned about being paid) that the money would arrive very soon John apologised profusely in his best Spanish.

The cash had vaporised somewhere between the ATM and the hotel None of us could believe it John, who comes from New York, was furious “I am a New Yorker We invented mugging. No!” Rage melted into bewilderment.Martin was dispatched to another ATM to take out 250 more euros. I marvelled at how a little knowledge of Spanish can cheer up a taxi driver.At the hotel, we tumbled out of the taxi and waited for John to pay the driver He reached into his top pocket and pulled out – nothing. I remember thinking of the taxi driver “well, he’s certainly perked up”.The upping of the conversational tempo and the occasional gasp of wonder coming from the front passenger seat were possibly the only clues as to what happened next. During the half-hour ride, John was straining his neck to see the “medieval this” and “Gaudi that” which seemed to be to his far right then left in turn.