I have been hearing a lot about the Taura Plum Grove over the past couple of weeks. Several people have told me how beautiful the trees were last year when they were in full bloom. Others who have been this year, reported the trees weren’t in full bloom yet. Simultaneously, someone else who went last week was told by the locals that most of the blooms were damaged from the cold weather or maybe they were told the trees had a disease. As always, a little bit is lost in translation. Regardless, I wanted to get out and about on the sunny early spring day. So, off I went. The route was a bit round about because the closet station to the Taura Plum Grove is Taura station. Taura station is a JR train line. The closest train station to our house is Jimmuji Station, on the Keikyu line. To get to the Grove, I went from Jimmuji station to the Kanazawa-Hakkei station, switched trains and went down to the Anjinzuka station. From the Anjinzuka station I had about a 30 minute walk to the grove. Coming home, I walked to the Taura station (20 minutes from the park) and took the JR line to Zushi and switched to the Keikyu line and came back to Jimmuji.
The walk to the park was pretty easy. There were flags marking the route as well as signs.
The park is on a hill. Which means there were a lot of stairs to climb. There were six long flights of stairs all similar to the two pictured here.
The view from the top was lovely. And as I had been warned, the Plum trees were not spectacular. As I walked further to the top, some of the trees offered more blooms.
You can imagine how beautiful this would be during the full bloom season.
I was able to take a few close up pictures.
There were several daffodils still blooming as well.
From the very top, the view was magnificent.
Interestingly, this sign is one we see when we take the toll road home from Main Base. I had some what of an “I know where I am moment” when I recognized the sign!
I took a different route down the hill to get out of the park. Still just as many stairs!!
Despite the lack of blooms on the trees, I enjoyed the afternoon exploring an area right in our backyard, so to speak. Imagine if all the trees looked like this one!
