Hi Everybody!
We were lucky, yesterday, to have some very clear, blue skies. Today was a gray and rainy day! It wasn’t the best day for taking pictures, but, as always, the sakura trees were still lovely. Here is my Kyoto sakura update for today.
You can see in yesterday’s Keihan sakura report that almost everywhere around Kyoto is at its peak right now. Some blossoms are starting to drop, but most trees are still filled with blossoms.
You can see more and more petals on the ground, but the trees don’t look like they have lost too many blossoms. Some of the weeping sakura trees still have many unopened blossoms on them, too.
We went to Kyoto Botanical Garden, today. To get there, we walked north along the Kamogawa River from Keihan Demachiyanagi Station. The east bank of the river is covered with someiyoshino sakura trees for a long ways, until you get close to the Botanical Garden.
The river bank path outside of the garden is called the Nakaragi Path. It has many rich pink weeping cheery blossoms hanging from trellises above the path. It is very beautiful, and only the beginning of the wonderful sights you can see inside the Botanical Garden.
When we left the garden, we then continued north along the river to Kamigamo Jinja Shrine.
Kamogawa River
The eastern bank of the Kamogawa River is covered with cherry tree for several kilometers as it flows south through Kyoto. There are many isolated trees along the western bank, too.
Paths follow the river on both sides. Different stretches of the path are lined with different types of sakura trees.
In earlier posts, I showed pictures of the river near Keihan Gojo, Shichijo, and Gion Shijo Stations. That area has a mixture of trees, but mostly weeping sakura trees.
The Kamogawa river is joined by the Takanogawa River at Demachiyanagi. The Kamogawa is the western of the two rivers that form a “Y” at Demachiyanagi Station, which is the end of the Keihan Line.
The stretch of the Kamogawa River going north from the station is filled with white and pink someiyoshino trees (the most famous and popular sakura trees). There are so many of them, here! They are so beautiful at their peak!
The petals are still quite pretty, even when they spread across the ground!
Nakaragi Path
The section of the path in front of the Kyoto Botanical Garden is called Nakaragi Path (“Nakaragi no Michi” in Japanese). Here, the trees are all weeping sakura, with their branches hanging across trellises. The blossoms are a deep pink and are quite different from the white petals of the someiyoshino trees.
I love the walk along the river here at this time of year! I come here every year.
The Kyoto Botanical Garden
The Kyoto Botanical Garden is spectacular at the peak of sakura blooming! Inside, there are two main areas to see sakura.
One of them is an orchard filled with many different types of cherry trees. There are solid white, pink and white, and all pink blossoms on the trees. Some are weeping trees, and some are not. It is a lovely sight. There are blossoms everywhere!
The other place to see sakura here is a small garden with one immense, lone weeping sakura tree! It is an amazing tree, set in a carpet of deep green plants!
Kamigamo-Jinja Shrine
Kamigamo-Jinja Shrine is one of the oldest shrines in Kyoto. It was once one of the main shrines regularly visited by the Imperial family. It also has several very beautiful weeping sakura trees in its entrance.
It is located north of the Botanical Garden, along the Kamogawa River.
That’s everything for today. We hope it will be a little drier tomorrow! I’m a little worried, though, the weather forecast says it will be cold this week! Sometimes you have to be very hardy to see all of the sakura!
We’ll talk to you, tomorrow!
Bua and Joe
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