This is part two of a two-part story. Read part one here.
“Hello, anybody there?” I waited for about a minute and thought, “I’ll fix them up when I’m exiting”.
There before me lay an extensive array of trimmed hedges and classical statuary.
Could it be that I had the whole place to myself?
It could, so I strolled through the land of tiered terraces, slowly reaching the heights whereupon I sat on a bench seat designed for just such an interlude with expansive vistas across the city.
No less personages than Goethe and Mozart have visited here and it was a real thing. It suffered somewhat from lack of care and maintenance, but that hardly detracted from my enjoyment at being the only person there. About 40 minutes later on my way out, I dutifully stopped by the ticket office yet again, yet no-one was to be seen.
Read more: 48 hours in Rome on a budget
Reflecting on my good fortune, I stepped out again into the moving array of umbrellas as another shower drifted across the historical city. I reflected on how people say the balcony is a “must-see” while cynical me casts it as a “must-avoid”. I wonder why more don’t come and see the garden; after all, it’s real.
As I strolled back past the Basilica of San Zeno I reflected on another panel I’d once seen. I’d caught the cable car in San Francisco with no real destination in mind and alighted beside a pleasant-looking park with extensive views over the city. It transpired that I’d stopped at Nob Hill – enclave of the rich and famous. Perhaps I was out of my social set but, unknowingly, I wandered around the lovely part at the summit.
It had been such a hike to get up the slope, so steep at 24.8 degrees on the south side that the good folks who originally lived here paid for a cable car system. Nice to have money. The term ‘Nob’ is a derivation of the Hindu word Nabob, referring to someone who has power and money and, for a mere $12,000, you can have the penthouse suite at the Fairmont Hotel. That’s per day of course! Still, it comes with your own maid, butler and limousine service, so you could save on car rental…
As I strolled around Huntington Park, the crowning glory of Nob Hill, a copy of Rome’s Fontana delle Tartarughe, Fountain of the Turtles, by Taddeo Landini and installed in the park in 1954, kept catching my eye. It was renovated in 1984.
As I neared the cathedral, I spied the largest Gothic structure in the west of America, and inspired by San Chappelle in Paris. As I strolled around the rear, it almost made my eyes pop. I couldn’t believe it but I knew I’d seen it before. It was Ghiberti’s famous bronze doors sculpted for the Baptistery in Florence that none less than Michelangelo deemed fit to be the Gates of Heaven. Yet here I was, all alone, in America, staring at them.
Read more: 8 foods worth putting on weight for in Italy
For what happened was that the original was put into storage during war time and two copies were made. The original is still in storage somewhere in Florence. What you see there and in San Francisco are the copies. They’re not fakes, just copies, but I wonder how many who go to Florence actually realize that?
I headed two blocks further on from Huntington to view the intricacies of the cable car system and its amazing wire rope that makes the whole thing work. At least that was original.