Petrol prices

As I now feel like I've travelled a bit, I thought I might have the right to a word on the sensitive subject of how dreadfully much we pay for petrol in the UK.  I know the government has U-turned and said they won't impose the extra 3p tax in August (which I was counting on missing out on!) but I still expected with all the hype, that petrol prices would be hugely less as soon as we hit Calais.  Surprisingly, they weren't.  In France the price we paid was 1.58 euros, which with today's exchange rate is £1.26 (which has gone up slightly in the last few days) and then 1.61 euros further down (£1.29).  In some places it was as high as 1.68 euros which is £1.35 a litre - so much for cheaper european petrol!  It was suggested we fill up in Luxembourg because it is known to be cheaper, this might be true but we would have had to queue for a hour to get it, so didn't bother.  As we got further south into Austria we were excited to see the price was finally dropping to a wopping 1.43 euros, or £1.14 a litre.  I don't think we can count on our money going further with less spending on petrol, it appears most european governments are propping up their finances with taxes on fuel.