[totaltec]

I see several ways to get the clean URL, not sure which to advise you to use. For instance, on a category page we have:
{$php_url} - returns the whole string "http://yourdomain.com/this-category-url/"

{$canonical_url} - returns just "this-category-url/"

{$current_category.clean_url} - returns "this-category-url/" as well

On the product page {$canonical_url} returns "this-product.html" and {$php_url} gives "http://yourdomain.com/this-product.html"

Hope that helps.