JuneOntario's blog: A GARDEN VISIT AND NEW FRIENDS

In Rome on a Saturday morning in mid-May, I decided to seize the moment and visit the Japanese Garden at the Istituto Giapponese di Cultura, beyond the far side of the Borghese Park. I was supposed to be resting and recovering from jet-lag before joining a tour on Monday, but I had managed to get a good night’s sleep in a quiet room at Hotel Diocleziano, and I felt up to the challenge.

According to information I gleaned from Internet sources, the garden was open until May 30, with tours every half hour, on Thursdays and Fridays 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon. The garden’s location, at Via Gramsci #74, did not appear to be on a bus route, and although there were bus stops on streets adjacent to Via Gramsci, none of the buses that used them had routes anywhere in the neighborhood of my hotel on Via Gaeta. I was near the Metro at Stazione Termini, but the garden is a fifteen-minute uphill walk from its nearest Metro stop, Flaminio/Piazza del Popolo on Line A, and I have bad knees. I gave up on public transport and asked my hotel to call a taxi for me at 9:30 a.m.

Once I had shown the taxi driver the garden’s location on the map, he set off with a will, threading through the hectic morning traffic. At one point, I realized we had left the streets and were driving through the middle of the Borghese Park on paths that I had always assumed were pedestrian-only. Squeezing through a gap between stone walls that hardly seemed wide enough for a vehicle we popped out like a pip from a squeezed lemon onto the wide boulevard in front of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna. Then we dove back into maze-like streets with a convoluted one-way system. A few minutes before 10 a.m. the taxi came to a halt and the driver announced, “This is it.”

I paid the fare, clambered out, and went up wide steps into the modern building of the Istituto. A notice in Italian posted next to the reception office informed me that the Japanese Garden was open only by appointment. Oh no! In shock and horror, I appealed to the reception clerk that I had been unaware of the restriction and today was the only chance I would have to see the garden. He relented and said that, if the group that had booked the 10 a.m. tour agreed, I could go in with them. By a stroke of luck, the group turned out to be a social club of North Americans residing in Rome, and they had no objection to a visiting Canadian tagging along. The only problem (for me) was that they had booked a guided tour in Italian, a language in which I can order a meal, but not make conversation.

Although I could not understand the guide, I already knew that the gardens were the work of garden designer Ken Nakajima, also responsible for the Japanese section of the botanic gardens in Trastevere, Rome. I also knew to expect cherry trees, wisteria, irises, and dwarf pines, a waterfall, ponds, and ornamental bridge, and a traditional toro stone lamp. Once through the garden gate, I discovered that the garden had been cleverly fitted into a modestly sized, sloping site.

A peripheral gravel walkway, passing beneath small ornamental trees, took us along the top of a grassed slope with a clear view of the pond and plantings in the dell below. At the bottom of the slope, rounded areas of gravel transitioned between mown grass and beds of clipped dwarf pine and mounded bushes surrounding the long, sinuous pond. We descended the slope, and carefully crossed the pond on irregularly-spaced stepping stones. A narrow path between bushes on the far side took us to an area where the water abutted the side of the Istituto building. Here, large koi swam sluggishly about. Leaving the pond, we climbed a gravel path at the far side of the slope and discovered a wisteria-covered arbour.

While we were in the garden, the skies opened and it rained very heavily. My “shower-proof” jacket had not been any use at all, and though I had sheltered under the umbrellas of obliging strangers whenever possible, I was completely soaked by the end of the tour. I stood on the steps of the Istituto and wondered how far I would have to walk in the rain before finding a taxi or a bus stop. Just then, one of the ladies from the tour offered me a ride, assuring me that I would not be taking her and her husband out of their way. Mariassunta and her husband Adelberto, Italian-born, had lived and worked in Ontario for most of their lives, and then moved to Rome after retirement. While Adel drove, Maria chatted about life in Rome and showed me pictures of family members still living in Canada. They dropped me off close to my hotel. In a matter of minutes, these strangers had become friends, and I hope to see Maria and Adel again when they next visit Ontario.

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