Kyoto: Petals Starting To Fall

This year's cherry blossom season has on the whole been earlier compared to the average year. The cherry blossom front line has now reached the Tohoku Region, with Sendai and Yamagata reporting the opening of their first blossoms on March 26 and 31 respectively, approximately two weeks earlier compared to the average year.

The past seven days were filled with reports of sakura at full bloom from many cities between Tokyo in the east and Kyushu in the south. Schauwecker was in Tokyo yesterday and reported that the cherry blossoms in the capital city were still at their best viewing despite the petals starting to fall. I visited Kyoto today, six days after Matt reported that the flowers were at full bloom in the old capital. I found that the petals of the cherry blossoms had started to fall, but many blossoms still remain on the cherry trees. I would consider the cherry blossoms to still be at their best viewing and remain so through this weekend.

The approximately 2 kilometer Philosopher's Path contains close to 400 cherry trees, and today I found the cherry blossoms to still be at full bloom. I expect the blossoms to remain attractive through this weekend before the petals start to fall next week.

Over at the popular Keage Incline, the petals had started to fall but there were still lots of blossoms on the trees. I expect the blossoms along the Keage Incline remain at their best viewing through this weekend.

I found the petals of the cherry trees at Maruyama Park to be falling, but there were still lots of flowers to see. I expect the best viewing here to continue through to this weekend. The park is illuminated in the evenings from March 29 to April 7, and food and drink stalls can be found along the entrance of the park.

The majority of the cherry trees at Arashiyama can be found near the Hankyu Arashiyama Station and along the Katsura River not far from the Togetsukyo Bridge. The cherry trees had some petals falling, but were still attractive overall. I expect the best viewing to continue through to this weekend.