I rode in a horse-drawn carriage once – in Palermo. I negotiated the price in Italian (€30) and the four of us climbed aboard. We set off down one of Palermo's main streets, and a few minutes later pulled up at the ride's end a little further along that same street.
I was relieved the trip was so brief; travelling anywhere by carriage in the 21st century seems ridiculous, even on holiday in Sicily.
"That's €120," the driver said as I climbed down.
"You said €30," I replied.
"Yes. Thirty each."
I didn't pay it. We settled on something more than €30 and less than €120: enough to preserve both Sicilian and Anglo-Saxon honour.
So I come to the debate on horse-drawn carriages in Melbourne with some prejudices.
Lord mayor Robert Doyle told Melbourne's carriage operators in May that their permits to park in Swanston Street wouldn't be renewed after July 1, and that they would have to move their business to St Kilda Road.
Some of the operators are refusing to move. One, Peter Hunter, who runs Elite Carriages and First Class Horse Drawn Carriages, told this newspaper: "I've been in the city for 20-odd years and mayors come and go – I don't – and I think I provide a very good service. I'll risk prison over it. I don't bow."
I don't want to beat up on little guys trying to make a living; I feel sorry if this will affect their trade. I even applaud them for standing up to the man.
And I'm not suggesting that Melbourne's coachmen and coachwomen are shysters, or do anything other than provide the ride promised at the price advertised.
But who really thinks Swanson Street – Melbourne's busiest tram and bike corridor – is the place for horse-drawn carriages in 2017?
The only place for horse-drawn carriages these days is royal weddings and royal funerals, and as a republican I hope to see many more of the latter than the former (and none of them on the streets of Melbourne).
In this city they're a hazard to cyclists and and a nuisance to trams (one horse put its head through a tram window in 2016 and was dragged along the street). They provide a service that 99.9 per cent of locals never use, and I doubt that anyone comes to Melbourne for the carriage rides.
And isn't it cruel to expect the horses to mix it with trams and delivery vehicles (not to mention the tram tracks) as they cart tourists around?
It's time to move the horse trade to St Kilda Road, where the tourists can enjoy jaunts along the famous boulevard and through the Domain, and go home afterwards with the memory that our city is marvellous, but not Smellbourne.
Matt Holden is a Fairfax Media columnist.
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