Sometimes, even Nature needs a little help. Sometimes, Man and Nature combine to create such Wonderful things that it’s not only impossible to separate which made the greater contribution — but it just doesn’t matter.
Whom do we thank for San Francisco? The hills? The bay? The 1906 earthquake? The fog? Or do we thank the planners and architects who designed the gingerbread houses and charming public buildings found nowhere else, who installed (and preserved) the cable cars and built what is indisputably the most beautiful bridge in the world?
Without the architecture, San Francisco is Cincinnati. Without the hills, it’s Oakland.
No one writes romantic ballads about leaving hearts in Cincinnati or Oakland.
Then there’s Machu Picchu.
When the Tribune drew up its first list of Seven Wonders of the World — man-made — Machu Picchu was an automatic. Machu Picchu is an astounding sight.
But the man-made part — the Inca city — is a ruin, and there are other, perhaps older, certainly more evocative ruins: Roman, Egyptian, Greek, Moorish, Mayan. Put Machu Picchu on a flat riverbank and maybe it’s back in the pack.
Maybe.
Machu Picchu is set spectacularly in the Andes of Peru. Is that what elevates it to Wonder status? Or is it the ruins themselves, discovered only in 1911 and certainly fascinating, and the mystery that surrounds them?
Rather than quibble, we present yet another list of Seven Wonders of the World — these a tribute to both Man and Nature. If Machu Picchu cause debate on the other list (see Page 29), here there can be none.
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Once again: Wow.
SEVEN WONDERS OF MAN AND NATURE
BALI’S RICE TERRACES, INDONESIA.
Tropical hillsides sculpted into soft, almost spiritual layers of the richest green imaginable.
CAPP;ADOCIA, CENTRAL TURKEY.
Frescoed Byzantine churches and prehistoric dwellings within cones of volcanic rock.
HONG KONG HARBOR. CHINA.
Framed by lovely peaks, it bustles gently by day and, by night, twinkles with excitement.
MACHU PICCHU, PERU.
So utterly unique on so many levels (including elevation), perhaps it belongs on its own List of One.
RHINE VALLEY. GERMANY.
Castles, chateaus and villages, and a river winding through verdant hills. Nice.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL.
OK, there’s squalor behind the faade — squalor that cannot and should not be ignored — but the facade is so absolutely fabulous . . .
SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES.
In so many ways, from so many angles, in all kinds of light, at all times of day.
AND SEVEN MORE: Acapulco Bay, Mexico; Lhasa, Tibet; Mt. Rushmore, United States; Salzburg, Austria; Santorini, Greece; Sydney Harbor, Australia; and Tuscany, Italy.