2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Himeji Castle

Apr 29 | Evan | Comments Off |

Before evening returning from the the 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, I received a few inquiries about the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan! If you are looking for that information, the details of the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan can be found here.

Himeji Castle, located in between Hiroshima and Kyoto, is considered to be one of the top 3 castles in all of Japan and also one of best spots in Japan for viewing cherry blossoms. Himeji Castle just finished a 5 year long restoration and fully reopened to the public at the end of March. Between the newly opened castle, being one of the top castles in Japan and being one of the best spots for cherry blossoms in Japan, Himeji Castle was CROWDED! Don’t get me wrong, most popular places for cherry blossom in Japan are crowded, so we were expecting this, but we were told it was a 2 hour wait to go into the main keep!

Luckily, the cherry blossoms are all around the outside and since I had arranged to get tickets ahead of time, we didn’t have to wait long to enter the Himeji Castle grounds. We had plenty of time to explore the castle grounds and find great spots with cherry blossom and the castle and photos of just Himeji Castle.

While we did see our first blue sky and the sun for a few hours in the afternoon in Himeji, we didn’t have much of a sunset or sunrise the next morning in Himeji. I know of a few good places for spectacular views of Himeji Castle, which would really had been nice had we weather cooperated with our group tour but like most days of this trip, we had mostly cloudy and some rain but went anyway…

Want to see more photos from the 2015 Cherry Blossom Photography Tour of Japan? The group tour also went to Tokyo, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kyoto and some of us to The Fuji Five Lakes close to Mt. Fuji. Stay tuned for more photos from the escorted tour of Japan!