Five thriving beautiful cities to enjoy the cherry blossoms every spring
Next Sunday, March 26, the clocks will be presented – that makes you want longer days and spring blossoms. Here are some of the best destinations for catching nature’s fleeting sakura fireworks display in late March and early April.
The cherry blossom is the national flower of Japan, so it would be remiss not to include its motherland in a round-up of the best flowering locations.
Kyoto has the best of both words, with its sleek modern city and historic district of Higashiyama. There is Maruyama Koen Park, one of the city’s most popular cherry blossom spots, where lights twinkle daily from dusk until midnight.
Elsewhere, the Kyoto Botanical Garden has a late-flowering variety that peaks in early April with around 450 specimens.
● Washington, D.C is best known for its Corridors of Power – but its steely reputation is somewhat tempered by the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, which runs from March 18th to April 16th this year.
Sometime within those four weeks, the flowering season will reach its peak, with the city’s Tidal Basin taking center stage in festival events. Expect a parade, live music, guided walking and bike tours, restaurant trails, fireworks, a kite festival, and the Petal Porch contest where residents decorate their lots with floral displays—a kind of cute Halloween.
All of this is thanks to globetrotter and travel writer Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, who after a trip to Japan in 1885 campaigned for a “cherry field” and finally granted her wish in 1912. Nationalcherryblossomfestival.org
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Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC: Photo: Rebecca Bullene
● Spring in Paris is a well-known confection, but do you know Germany’s? Bonn is also an integral part of the Cherry Blossom Trail? The Heerstraße in Nordstadt, just north of Bonn’s main square, is even nicknamed Cherry Blossom Avenue because of its annual bloom.
The trees were planted here in 1980 as a symbol of friendship between Japan and the people of Germany. It’s a gift given again and again for the social media generation, whose grids are dominated by bright pink canopies each season. Nearby Breite Strasse, marked by an “Altstadt” sign, is also a flower-watcher’s paradise.
● The Netherlands is best known for its tulips – but in Amsterdam every spring is all about the cherry blossom. Kersenbloesempark, also known as Cherry Blossom Park, in the suburb of Amstelveen, has been called that since the Japanese women’s club gave away 400 sakuras to the Netherlands in 2000. Each tree has a name – half have a Japanese female name, half have a Dutch female name.
Westerpark is also a popular spot for picnicking under a canopy of plants – that is, if you can snag a spot, as local residents and tourists flock to the scenic scene.
● It is NYC‘s Central Park, which draws a lot of attention for its trail of cherry blossoms (there’s even a real-time interactive map for the more discerning blossom spotter: centralparknyc.org).
But hop on over to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where more than 200 trees are blooming all the way along Cherry Esplanade (there’s an interactive “Cherrywatch” map there too you can check out). bbg.org).
The garden has such a rich variety of different species and cultivars that they explode one after the other, allowing for a longer season than most.
https://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-news/five-blooming-lovely-cities-to-enjoy-cherry-blossoms-each-spring-42391515.html Five thriving beautiful cities to enjoy the cherry blossoms every spring
