Osaka castle Ume Sakura 2011 – The Beginning
All the photos are from the last Sunday – 20th of February. In general this year the ume sakura comes a little bit later than usual. Previous years at that the time the ume trees were in full blossom but as you will see from the photos bellow this year they just started to flower (some varieties actually still didn’t have a single flower).
The Osaka castle ume garden has 880 trees. It is only 4 stations away with the loop line from Umeda station (the main railway station in Osaka). You must get out at Osakajokoen station. After that you have around 20 minutes walk through the castle park to reach the ume garden (there are many maps on the way so you will not get lost).
Judging by what we saw last weekend the full blossom this year will happen most probably during the first week of March (but considering the many different varieties present in the garden it is really difficult to predict).
Here is a view of part of the garden from above:
There were crowds but it was not overcrowded as sometime happens with such events:
And here are the photos from the ume trees themselves:
There was and ume trees market. You could actually buy the trees on the photos bellow. They were selling and many ume bonsai trees (I will make a separate post for them).
The Osaka castle itself in background:
I hope we can make it next week again to the castle so I can take photos from the full blossom :)
2 Comments on Osaka castle Ume Sakura 2011 – The Beginning
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Wow… Beautiful!
The only time I went to Osaka castle it was late spring and raining a lot. That makes quite a difference.
Thank you David!
I was surprised by the ume garden myself. I knew that there is one but I thought it is much smaller. As I mentioned I hope we can make it there again next week but it is sometimes tricky with the kids…
By the way the last late spring we were on Ogijima. It was not raining. It was very hot and there were enormous insects everywhere but we reached the lighthouse nevertheless. And we loved it. I hope we’ll visit the island again one day :)