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Retired in Rome Journal: Four-day trek starts slow but ends on a very major high

Zelenom pleso ("lake" in Slovak) is what greeted me at the end of my first day's hike, a five-hour uphill slog.

I’m sitting in a big A-frame hut in the middle of the High Tatras and trying to decide what’s the better view: The one to my left through two big picture windows of window boxes filled with pink and white flowers, with a green lake in the background and a craggy mountain climbing to the sky. Snow is on its higher crevices and a series of waterfalls cascade down the rock. Then again, over my right shoulder is a series of picnic benches surrounded by purple wildflowers and the expanse of the thick green forest stretching into the valley I left far below this morning.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Opening day of football season — Roman style

Curva Sud's vicious fans were unusually well behaved for A.S. Roma's season opener Saturday night.

so much of what I’ve experienced in this leadup to A.S. Roma’s season reminds me of my 23 years in Denver. Just like before the Broncos season, the city of Rome is buzzing as if the whole town is about to give birth for the first time. New additions coming off A.S. Roma’s highest point total in history have breathless columnists predicting its fourth Serie A (Italian national league) in its 86-year history. Old men in my caffe are talking soccer every morning. I’m overhearing soccer conversations in the gym. A.S. Roma’s red and yellow colors are flying more, whether they’re flags from apartment buildings or jerseys off store shelves. I’m forming bonds with complete strangers just by pulling out my A.S. Roma keychain.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Road to Slovakia lined with new West, old East and a skyline of majestic mountains

Pension Atrium in the pleasant town of Poprad at the foot of the High Tatras mountains.

I wanted to trek in Slovakia for a few reasons. No. 1, I love the outdoors and my love for Rome hasn’t limited my love to just outdoor statues and piazzas. Two, I have a huge wall in my bedroom that desperately screams for art. I want the best picture I can take of the High Tatras and have my local camera guy blow it up 5 x 7 feet, dwarfing the size of my Caravaggio print and matching of what everyone will assume is the size of my ego. Three, I wanted to get away from Rome’s August heat.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Czech spa treatment a throwback to sexy side of Ancient Rome

The spa in the five-star Nove Lazne hotel has the original Roman-style baths fro 1896 and three separate mineral pools.

Inside Novel Lazne, people walk through the posh lobby in fluffy white bathrobes as if the five-star resort as their own private estate. I picked up a copy of the hotel’s spa price list and perused the services. They are broken down into categories, from electrotherapy to hydrotherapy to massages and packs. Anything you’d ever want or didn’t think you’d want is offered: acupuncture for 550 koruna ($30), ultrasound therapy (220 koruna), massage with ivy essences (112). The price range goes from a Scottish spray of hot and cold water for 100 to a dubious anti-aging gerovital for 5,950 ($330). I was tempted to try the Chocolate Massage Superior but I didn’t want to walk out feeling like a Toblerone bar.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Marianske Lazne is spa-tacular

Marianske Lazne's healing mineral waters have treated the rich and famous since the early 20th century.

I just got up for the second time to see if it’s still drizzling outside. I’m deep in the forest of the Czech Republic’s West Bohemia region, taken from what old Czechoslovakia was called back in the 19th century. Marianske Lazne is one of the towns in the region dedicated to spas. Nearly every hotel has one. It’s like an entire isolated region in Central Europe is dedicated to the concept of wellness. I feel beyond well. I feel uplifted, refreshed, strong, spiritual, even orgasmic. I am beyond happy.

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Retired in Rome Journal: Prague Castle a disappointment but Church of SS Cyril a terrifying look at Czech’s haunting past

St. Vitus Cathedral is Czech Republic's largest church and is the anchor of Prague Castle.

A long walk up a broad staircase took me to some spectacular panoramic views of Prague. It truly is a beautiful city with all its red brick roofs, statuesque churches and a river snaking through it all. For 57 years under communism, Prague was as gray as a KGB trenchcoat. From above the city today, it looks like it received a paint job, a facelift and some new clothes. If Prague was a woman, she could definitely join the other European capitals at the ball.

However, I saw no signs of a castle. I saw two stern men in powder blue suits staring straight ahead and guarding the huge archway of Matthias Gate. It led to a series of souvenir shops and tourist information booths that made me feel I was stepping into a Czech Disneyland.

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Retired in Rome Journal: Prague’s run to the West was the fleetest of all

Old Town Square, with 18th century St. Nicholas Church, has measured Prague's pulse since the 10th century.

But comparing modern Czech Republic to its communist past is like comparing my Rome to the Roman Empire. Czechoslovakia seems that long ago. I had dessert last night at Cafe Savoy, one of the most exclusive restaurants in Prague. It’s where the movers and shakers meet and eat under crystal chandeliers, in booths of gold-wood paneling with white tablecloths. Opened in 1893, the beautifully hand-painted roof was covered for protection in World War I. During Czechoslovakia’s communism era, from 1945-2002, one of the best restaurants in Eastern Europe was a storage area.

I asked my waiter what he remembers of communism.

“Nothing,” he said. “It ended six years before I was born.”

Welcome to the Czech Republic.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Mick Jagger can get plenty of satisfaction in Saint-Tropez

Plage des Graniers is a 15-minute walk from Saint-Tropez's bustling, crowded harbor.

Coming into the famous port, Saint-Tropez’s buildings look like sandstone castles. It’s almost a uniform beige tint that gives Saint-Tropez a fairyland feel to it. Sticking up from the apartment complexes and government buildings is the pink and gold bell tower of Notre Dame de l’Assomption Church. The first impression I had of Saint-Tropez was of a quiet, little fishing village with charming architecture and boats bobbing up and down on a quiet harbor.

Then we docked.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Canne$ is affordable if you can find a place to park your Ferrari

Cannes' harbor is right next to Le Palais where they hold the film festival every May.

La Croisette hotels such as Le Grand, J.W. Marriott, Carlton and Grand Hyatt Martinez all have their private beaches. Sculpted bodies, a few even without surgery, lie poleaxed on white-cushioned lanais chairs atop man-made wooden jetties 50 meters into the sea. In between the hotels are the brand names of every overpriced luxury clothes and accessory store on a woman’s wish list. Prada. Salvatore Ferragamo. Jimmy Choo. Yves Saint Laurent. Hugo Boss. Ralph Lauren. Every window display is presented like art in the Louvre. Can you justify charging 1,000 euros for a handbag just because it’s backlit?
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Retired in Rome Journal: Cannes a movie set for the rich and famous

Me with one of the best views in France.

I had a dream last night. I was in the bathroom of the Carlton Cannes Hotel and Jack Nicholson came up next to me and took a pee.

You don’t have to dream that here. That can actually happen — in late May, of course. That’s when 30,000 people in the movie biz and 4,000 journalists descend on this Mediterranean beach town and give the world a preview of what they’ll see in the theaters that year. I never covered the Cannes Film Festival. I haven’t written a movie review since a movie lit class my junior year in high school. (I barbecued an awful French film called “Le Bucher,” a, believe it or not, “sympathetic” look at a French serial killer. I got a C-minus. The only good my last review did was show me ways to disembowel my obviously illiterate lit teacher and it gave me a voice for how I’d later cover sports for 40 years.)

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Retired in Rome Journal: Lungo il Tevere is Rome’s gift to Tiber River and embattled Romans

For 12 straight summers, Rome has lined the Tiber River with temporary restaurants, bars, boutiques and art galleries.

Rome has cleaned up the Tiber in one regard. With Lungo il Tevere, for the 12th straight summer, the city has placed temporary bars, restaurants, exhibits, boutiques and novelty stores all along the west bank of the Tiber and Isola Tiburina. From Ponte Sublicio, just across the bridge from my apartment, to Ponte Sisto in Trastevere, a distance of about 800 meters, you can do everything from smoke a hookah to buy an 1960s rock album to listen to rock bands to just sit in overstuffed couches with a loved one and stare out at a river you never saw look better. From June 12-Aug. 31, the Tiber looks like the class ugly duckling with ratty clothes getting a total makeover. Suddenly, all of Rome wants to be with her.
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Retired in Rome Journal: Porchetta sandwich the one great escape from Rome in July

The porchetta sandwich, famous around Rome since the 15th century.

Porchetta (por-KET-ah) is a suckling pig stuffed with rosemary, garlic and fennel, among other yummy herbs and spices, then roasted on a spit for six to eight hours. It’s then cut into chunks and placed between two thick slices of fresh Italian bread. It’s the ultimate panino (or, as Americans insist on calling them, panini). It was invented in the 15th century — although legend has it that Emperor Nero liked eating porchetta as much as Christians — around the time of the Renaissance. It was when Italy was emerging from a great economic abyss and learned how to celebrate again. The porchetta became the focus of many feasts. While the porchetta was first devoured in nearby Ariccia, Frascati has become the place to eat suckling pig today.

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