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

Norway-Italy pass

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.)

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

Norway-Italy pass

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.
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Coffee in Italy is a culture you must taste to understand

How I start my day: a cappuccino and perfect chocolate cornetto at Linari, my neighborhood cafe.

To live in Italy, one must do more than drink coffee. One must understand coffee. When you visit Italy, order a coffee in one of the following ways:
Caffe. This is the most common yet the most shocking to Americans. It is a simple shot of espresso that fills about a third of a small cup just a bit bigger than a thimble. I still enjoy watching Americans’ jaws drop when they see it and ask, “Where’s the rest of it?” This isn’t Starbucks, Bubba. Thank God.
Caffe macchiato. This is halfway between a caffe and a cappuccino. It’s a caffe stained with a little spot of milk. Pronounce it correctly, mock-ee-OTTO, and you’ll be treated like a local.
Cappuccino. The classic Italian coffee. Espresso coffee covered in warm milk then topped with creamy foam, it is the perfect way to start the Italian day. Please note the word “start.” Do NOT, even if the craving eats at you like a heroin withdrawal, order a cappuccino after noon. Only tourists do that. Yes, you’re a tourist. Just don’t act like a stupid one.
Cappuccino ben caldo. “Ben caldo” means “extra hot.” This is my favorite. Italians like to drink their coffee fast and don’t like it so hot it singes their tongues like American coffee. I like mine with a newspaper.
Marochino. A small cappuccino sprinkled with chocolate, popular with Italian teen-agers and wimpy American expats.
Ristretto. A shorter shot of espresso and isn’t much more than a sip. It should not be confused with ristretto’s other meaning: What happens to a man’s penis when he comes out of the cold Adriatic Sea.
Americano. A long black coffee that, in more than three years in Rome over two stints, I have never seen an Italian order unless he lost a bet.

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A.S. Roma draws with Barcelona and gives a city hope

A packed Olympic Stadium crowd of 57,836 watched Roma tie defending champions Barcelona as the Champions League kicked off for Roma Wednesday night.

This is Roma’s season. In my refrigerator, chilling well, is a large bottle of Prosecco.

The Champions League, however, is what draws attention from the entire world. And on Wednesday night, the world’s soccer fans bored their collective eye on Rome’s Olympic Stadium. It was the opening game of the Champions League group stage and in town was the greatest team in the world, the defending champion, boasting the best player in the world.

F.C. Barcelona.
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Lake Como: My favorite lake in the world is Italy’s watery exotic dancer

Lake Como, from a villa in Varenna, is dotted with 18 villages and connected by a convenient ferry system.

The Italian Alps come down around Lake Como like giant, jagged claws clutching a basin of cool, clean water. In September, the mountains don’t have snow but they’re still majestic in their height, their steepness, their proximity to my favorite lake in the world. Also, I can’t help staring at their color. They’re covered in green forest. Above the tree line, the brown rock sticks out high above the lake as if to protect it from unwanted foreign objects — like jet skis, yachts and drunk Texans.

This is my view as I’m sitting at my hotel pool along the lake. I went to India in March to learn the meaning of perfect bliss. I may have found it on Lake Como: reading the Italian sports paper next to a beautiful pool in front of me and a gorgeous lake behind me after spending the day walking through a villa garden. I just had ravioli a few feet from the water. The summer’s suffocating heat has left, replaced by high 70s with the sun peeking through the high clouds.
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Travel guide to Castelli Romani: Hidden gems in the hills southeast of Rome

Lago di Nemi is one of the many picturesque lakes that dot the Castelli Romani region southeast of Rome.

don’t want to turn this blog into a travel guide. This blog is about experiences, not information. But I have to switch gears this once. I have recently been touring an area outside Rome that I just can’t keep to myself any longer. It has been around for 2,000 years, inhabited by emperors and popes, ogled at by Romans and savvy Europeans. But very few Americans ever get out of Rome to marvel at this extraordinary area.

It’s called Castelli Romani. It’s a series of 14 small towns, most sporting castles (thus, the “castelli” in the title) and perched on hillsides or cliffs among the picturesque Alban Hills southeast of Rome. Less than an hour from the city, they were once used as defenses against a Pac-12 lineup of foreign invaders but now offer some of the best views in Italy.
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