Ben Welsher | Writings

Vicenza - 05/09/2010 We drowsily, sheepishly rose in the morning praying, in vain, that our late night revelries (we were celebrating a marriage after all) might not have disturbed our neighbours. My unfortunate spill out of the bus door the previous night had likely warned the bride's parents what was to come though. We had heard tell of a maiden by the name of Juliet in fair Verona so off we went to cop a feel. And most accommodating she was too, restoring our luck though though she could do nothing for our reputations. I strongly advise all travellers to take such fortune when offered be it by bosom or big toe. Grow grapes, pick grapes, squish grapes, ferment grapes, drink wine. With whatever is left make grappa, drink grappa, hold table. The local spirit has its home at Bassano and like true resentinieros we made our pilgrimage. Bassano's bridge rather pales next to the Stari Most but that's hardly the point. We spent the evening, in crude terms, pissing ourselves abo

Vicenza - 04/09/2010 Our road had ended in a flurry of confetti. Suddenly after two weeks it was no longer de rigueur to leave our accommodation in clothes more creased than Nelson Mandela's face. By the skillful location and application of a travel iron my shirt was made smooth (apparently I could also have straightened my hair with it, had I any). My travelling companion had turned Chief Bridesmaid© and my friends had turned wed. The ceremony was short and.........moving, an odd sensation for someone who usually experiences emotional movement of the most glacial sort. I confess that I cast my doubts on marriage; I opine on its sustainability, its compromise, its purpose. And yet, and yet, I sat and envied and awed and smiled broadly and warmly and sincerely. I saw loveliness and rightness and a warm blanket of feeling wrapped my heart. The happiness was palpable and I was grateful to be there to experience it. I have likely used my ration of gushing sentiment now so I shall ceas

Trieste/Vicenza - 03/09/2010 Monfalcano is not Trieste. But Monfalcano is Italy. Our next hire car resided in Trieste which was but a short train ride from the aforementioned location we blearily found ourselves in as the sun came up. Good news after a long night of balkanology, even greater fortune was that the train was complementary, as are all modes of transport when you choose not to buy a ticket. We sat listlessly outside Trieste Train Station watching the town and its denizens slowly come to life as light seeped over the horizon. Eventually, in a side street aromatised with the spicy tang of urine, we were given our automobile and barring police intervention we would be in Vicenza and our final destination within the two hour. The Autogrill must be an utterly, unfathomably foreign place to the tourist, they must reel at the baffle and the bustle. We citizens of the world, we single, bilingual, peripatetic beings negotiated the disorder with what 'posh twats' call aplom

Zagreb/Somewhere in Slovenia - 02/09/2010 The 5:30 bus had ceased to be an option so our only way of reaching Italy was now the late train, really late. We had purloined a map of Zagreb with walking tours but Budget Rent-a-Car were kind enough to give us a driving tour of the city during the dropping off of their car. After returning the vehicle in more or less the same condition as we received it (missed calls suggest they may have discovered the wheel), time was our most voluable friend. And so we walked. We took in scaffolded cathedrals (and came out the richer, thanks God) and colourfully tiled churches. We promenaded endless, repeating, boatless waterfront and still the hour of departure did not come. We enlarged Zagreb's 'free tram' zone to cover the greater part of the city and still our time here was not done. The theory of relativity states that a being's perception of time is relative to the list of available activities in the city in which they are stuck. Al

Plivice/Zagreb - 01/09/2010 No swimming, no fishing, no straying from trails, no wrestling the bears. Simply shuffle round in tightly packed column taking the same pictures as those that went before you, leave. The Plitvice Parks are an eden but a tightly managed one. I cannot decide if this is the only way they could remain as they are or have had their natural beauty somewhat diminished by the railings of man's modern impositions. One cannot deny the sumptuous visual banquet they present though. The lakes are aquamarine at depth to clear, crystalline purity in the shallows. If a person were permitted to plunge into the deep blue they would surely hesitate lest it all be the flat, paint-daubed canvas of a master artist. The fish, their fins tinged with cornflower blue, bathe in the sunshine in perfect awareness of their protection. The flora and fauna seem oddly monocultural, is this a place of preservation or presentation? What primordial force draws us to water, causes us to wo