Europe

January 15, 2016

Liechtenstein: The Alps’ last monarchy is a tiny slice of royal beauty

The view of Vaduz Castle over the tiny Liechtenstein capital of Vaduz (Pop. 5,300).

The first thing you must know about Liechtenstein is how to pronounce it. Just imitate a cat coughing up a furball: LEEEECCCHHHHT-en-stein.The fourth smallest country in Europe is all of 62 square miles, the size of Staten Island. From one end to the other is 17 miles. It’s nine miles wide. Driving from one end to the other takes 25 minutes. It takes that long to get out of Heathrow Airport. Yet it still has 240 miles of well-marked hiking trails.

A few things you didn’t know about Liechtenstein. If you did, you need to get out more. Liechtenstein has:

No airport
No military
One train station
One ski resort
One hospital
One TV channel
One radio station
Two newspapers
(To read more, click here.)

January 10, 2016

Two-year anniversary inspires all new list of why I love living in Rome

Two years ago today I landed in Rome. Ever since, it has been one "Saluti!" after another.

Two years ago today I landed in Rome with three bags, fewer friends and more risk than a mob informant. But today, I am approaching my 60th birthday in two months at the apex of my life. My happiness is growing like the lemon tree on my penthouse terrace overlooking the Tiber River. Retirement in Rome was the biggest chance I’ve ever taken but has made me happier than I’ve ever been. Looking forward to retirement, folks?
Retire to paradise, wherever you consider that is.
(To read more, click here.)

December 30, 2015

Christmas in Paris: A somber look at its darkest day since World War II

Security in Paris remains tight around the sites of the November terrorist attacks such as this soldier in front of Bataclan theater.

On Christmas morning, I threw myself into France’s deadliest day since World War II. I hate to call it a “Ghoul Tour.” They do those in Hollywood. However, they’re distant, isolated incidents tied together by the vague concept of fame. Seeing where actors and rock stars overdose is not the same as seeing where a student was gunned down while watching a concert or an ad executive was shot to death before she finished her glass of Bordeaux at a sidewalk cafe.
(To read more, click here.)

December 17, 2015

Roman waiters’ service puts their American counterparts to shame

Me with Marco Uras, a waiter for 30 years, at Mamma Venerina near the Vatican.

Let me tell you how to wait a table. It is courtesy of one Marco Uras, a terrific veteran waiter at Mamma Venerina, one of my favorite restaurants in my old neighborhood, Prati, near the Vatican. Uras has been a waiter for 30 years dating back to his childhood home in Sardinia. Uras represents what restaurant wait service in Rome is all about. Respect. Professionalism. Efficiency. Kindness. Patience.

This is what restaurant wait service in the U.S. is all about: tips, overbearingness, tips, questions, impatience and more tips.
(To read more, click here.)

December 9, 2015

Jubilee year off to slow start in Rome, allegedly near top of Isis’ hit list

St. Peter's Square after Pope Francis gave the opening speech at the Jubilee. Hotel occupancy is down 20 percent at the start of an event expected to attract 33 million pilgrims.

I wanted to see how Rome handled security. Ever since the Paris attacks, I’d seen camouflaged soldiers carrying machine guns in subway stations. Police cars clogged busy street corners. Every government building had extra security.
So I took a bus across the Tiber River to Prati, my old neighborhood near the Vatican. I walked down Via Porta Angelica, one of the main tourist thoroughfares into St. Peter’s Square. An army truck with armed soldiers manned one corner. Dozens of men and women wearing green neon and navy coats with “Protezione Civile Volontariato” stood on the street. A Red Cross truck and a bevy of medics in red and white outfits stood outside the Vatican wall, as if ready to move at the first sound of a bomb or the first view of a flying body part.
(To read more click here.)

December 7, 2015

Baker’s Tomb one of Rome’s many ancient historical secrets

Between 50-20 B.C., the former Greek slave Eurysaces built his own tomb to represent his bread baking profession.

His name was Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces. He was a Greek slave who, when freed, could continue his profession as a baker but could not earn Roman citizenship until …

… he baked 100 bushels of bread a day — single handedly. Furthermore, he had to sell the bread to the state, at a larcenously low price, for at least three years. Yes, in many ways, Ancient Romans were complete unadulterated swine.
Eurysaces kneaded and baked, baked and kneaded. Soon, he found himself with Roman citizenship and a thriving bakery. Bread was a valuable foodstuff in Ancient Rome and by 30 B.C., Eurysaces had become one of the top bakers in town. He became rich. So, matching some of the egos in the Roman Senate, he purchased a plot of land near one of the main gates of Rome. Why?

So he could build himself his own tomb.
(To read more, click here.)

November 24, 2015

Tombs of Via Latina a once beaten path now lined with the dead of Ancient Rome

Via Latina is 5,000 years old and once stretched 115 miles from Rome to where near Naples is today.

I walked down a 5,000-year-old street Sunday. Some roads in Rome look that old, but Via Latina really is 5,000 years old. Roman armies once marched down Via Latina toward Southern Italy. How old is Via Latina? You know Via Appia Antica, the famed street where Spartacus’ ill-fated slave revolt ended with his slaves hanging from crosses along the side of the road? Via Latina is older.
(To read more, click here.)

November 18, 2015

As world continues to crumble, tiny Sermoneta serves as a quiet respite

Sermoneta, 55 miles south of Rome, was founded as a 13th century castle to ward off foreign invasion.

Saturday I went to Sermoneta. Sermoneta is a medieval village atop a cliff more than 1,000 feet above an agricultural area, one of Benito Mussolini’s more successful projects from the 1930s. About 55 miles south of Rome and reachable by bus from the EUR Fermi Metro stop, Sermoneta has about 600 people, none of whom apparently has a car. I didn’t dodge any along the one narrow, cobblestone road. The rest of the village consists of windy, twisting alleys lined with pots blooming with red, yellow, purple and orange flowers. Even on an overcast day, the town burst with colors.
The village is as quiet as an outdoor abbey.
(To read more, click here.)

November 9, 2015

Rome’s SuperCat Show shows a city’s love for their furry citizens

Halloween night was the kickoff for a cat show that featured 800 cats and hosted about 30,000 visitors.

On Halloween night, the city of Rome put on its 16th annual SuperCat Show for all its cat aficionados. I could tell the popularity of cats here just by the venue. It was held at Nuova Fiera di Roma near Fiumicino, the coastal town that has Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Looking at the size of Fiera di Roma’s exhibition hall, I’m assuming when it doesn’t host cat shows it doubles as an airplane hangar. It was 50 meters long and nearly 108,000 square feet. In it were 800 cats, of which which were expected to be perused, petted and photographed over two days by about 30,000 people.
If you heard a giant “AHHHHHH!” coming from the direction of Italy about 10 days ago, that was us.
(To read more, click here.)

October 21, 2015

Friends With No Benefits Tour to Umbria goes to the heart of rural and religious Italy

The Gang of Seven at Terre dei Nappi winery in Bevagna. From left, going around the table, me, Pam Carpentier, Sabrina Crawford, Lisa Chambers, Errol Zahnow, Robert Della Vedova, Alessandro Castellani.

No region in Italy is less influenced by outside sources. This is what I love about Umbria. In a country that gets nearly 50 million tourists a year, Umbria may be the most authentic region of them all. Walled hill towns void of tourist buses. Remnants of the most beloved saint in Italian history. Ancient local delicacies ranging from piccione (pigeon) to cinghiale, the wild boar that has so overrun Umbria one might check you into your hotel room.

I recently made my second annual fall trip to Umbria, thanks to my partner in crime, sportswriter Alessandro Castellani, whose good friend, Umbrian innkeeper Leonardo De Mai, seemingly knows everyone in the region. Seven of us piled into cars and trains and headed north from Rome about two hours.
(To read more, click here.)

October 19, 2015

L’avanzamento della squadra Nazionale Italiana di calcio in una nazione con guerre regionali

La squadra Nazionale Italiana ha sempre risvegliato un grande interesse in Italia. Gli Italiani la seguono ma l’Italia è diversa da qualsiasi altro Paese del mondo. Nonostante abbia radici che risalgano a circa 3.000 anni fa e, indipendentemente dall’impronta indelebile che l’Impero Romano abbia lasciato nel mondo, l’Italia solo nel 1861 è diventata una Repubblica. Circa 100 anni più tardi degli Stati Uniti d’America.
(Leggere piu, scatta qui.)

October 14, 2015

Italy’s national soccer team advances in a nation of regional wars

It’s the 21st century, and Italy remains as regionalized as any country in the world. All 20 regions have their own dialect, their own history, their own cuisine. They also have their own soccer club. If a country rallies around its national soccer team, Italy’s regions rally around its soccer club. It takes precedence. Always. I listen to Rete Sport on 105.6 FM. It’s a radio station that is devoted all day to A.S. Roma. That’s it. No other team. No other sport. For 23 years I lived in Denver where domestic violence rises on days when the Denver Broncos NFL team doesn’t win. They don’t have media coverage like this.
(To read more, click here.)

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