POPE JOHN PAUL rested in his beloved Tatra mountains yesterday midway through a sentimental journey to his homeland. On the sixth day of his trip, the Polish Pope (77) had no public engagements in the area, where he loved to relax and meditate as a young man.
Local officials in the area of snowcapped peaks, bubbling streams and wooden chalets prepared a series of easy walks for the Pope, an avid hiker and skier until 1994, when he slipped in his bath and broke his leg.
The Pope appears reinvigorated by the scent and feel of his home land and the rapturous welcome of more than a million Poles, those accompanying him say.
The US "first daughter", Chelsea Clinton, due shortly to graduate from high school and head to college in Stanford University California, got a bittersweet send off yesterday from her mother who bemoaned the "empty nest" her only child will leave behind at the White House.
"Like parents across the country, we find ourselves fighting back tears as we contemplate what our days will be like when our daughter leaves the nest to embark on a new stage of life," Hillary Clinton wrote in her weekly syndicated column.
Queen Elizabeth II yesterday inspected her oldest bodyguards - accompanied by their captain, who happens to be her newest.
On parade behind Buckingham Palace were nearly 70 men of the Queen's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard, created by Henry VII in 1485.
he queen was accompanied by the Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, who by tradition is the government deputy chief whip in the Lords. Lord McIntosh of Haringey took office with the change of government.