Japan Sakura Expedition: From Cherry Blossoms to Ancient Temples

Day by day

1. Day 1Arrive TokyoArrival day · Easy

   Welcome to Japan. You make your own way from the airport to our Tokyo hotel, where Joe and the rest of the group will be waiting. Most flights from the UK land in the afternoon, so there is usually time to shake off the journey before we meet.

   Depending on arrival times we head out on foot for an easy orientation walk and our first meal together: an izakaya, a few small plates, a cold beer and a first go at chopsticks under the strip lights. Nothing strenuous. Get to bed early, because the jet lag will have you awake at five whether you like it or not.

2. Day 2Tokyo: old meets newFull day · 8 to 10 km · Hanami

   A full day on foot and on the metro, cutting between the two Tokyos. We start at Meiji Shrine, where a gravel avenue runs under enormous torii gates into forest, and the noise of the city simply stops. Out the other side is Harajuku and then Shibuya, where the famous scramble crossing sends a thousand people across the road at once, four times a minute.

   In the afternoon we cross the city to Asakusa and Sensoji, Tokyo's oldest temple, approached through a lane of stalls selling rice crackers and paper fans, then on to Ueno Park, which during blossom season becomes one long celebration under the trees.

   Expect 15,000 to 20,000 steps and a lot of stairs in and out of stations. Comfortable shoes matter more today than they will on the mountain.

3. Day 3Tokyo sakura discoveryFull day · Evening free

   The one day we deliberately leave loose. Blossom does not read itineraries, so Joe decides the morning before, based on where the trees have actually opened.

   The shortlist: the boat moat at Chidorigafuchi, where the branches hang so low over the water that the rowing boats disappear beneath them; Shinjuku Gyoen, a former imperial garden with dozens of varieties that flower in sequence, so something is always out; the Sumida River path with the tower behind it; and Yoyogi Park, which on a Sunday is the whole of Tokyo at play.

   The evening is yours. Ask Joe where to eat and be prepared to sit at a counter with six seats and no English menu, which is usually where the best meal of the trip happens.

4. Day 4Tokyo to Hakone and the first ryokanShinkansen · Ryokan night · Onsen

   We leave Tokyo by Shinkansen, which is worth the fare for the experience alone: a platform marked to the centimetre, a train that arrives silently and leaves ninety seconds later, and a cleaning crew that turns the whole thing round in seven minutes.

   Hakone is a caldera of pine covered ridges and sulphur vents an hour or so south. We take the ropeway up over Owakudani, where steam pours out of the hillside and they boil eggs black in the springs, then drop to Lake Ashi with its red torii gate standing in the water. On a clear afternoon Fuji sits directly behind it.

   Tonight is a traditional ryokan: tatami matting, futons laid out while you are at dinner, a yukata to wear to the table, and a kaiseki meal of many small, precise courses. Before bed, the onsen. Joe will run through the etiquette, which is simple once explained and worth getting right.

5. Day 5The Fuji Five Lakes400 steps · Full day · Best light

   North to the lakes that sit at Fuji's feet. The set piece is the Chureito Pagoda above Fujiyoshida, reached by just under 400 steps through a hillside of cherry trees. From the platform at the top you get the photograph that sells Japan: pagoda on the left, blossom across the frame, and the whole white cone of Fuji filling the sky behind. On a clouded day you get the pagoda, the blossom and a rumour of a mountain, which is simply how it goes.

   The rest of the day is spent around Kawaguchiko, walking the northern lake shore where the cherry avenue runs right down to the water, with time for coffee, a hot spring footbath and a lot of standing still looking at things.

   Be aware that the lakes sit higher and colder than Tokyo, so their blossom usually runs a week or two later than the capital's.

6. Day 6Shinkansen to the Japanese AlpsTravel day · Evening walk

   A travelling day, and a good one. We ride the Shinkansen north before changing to the limited express that threads up the Hida valley, a slow, beautiful line that follows the river through gorges and tunnels and small terraced villages with the mountains closing in on both sides. Bring a bento from the station: eating on a long distance train is entirely proper, and half the pleasure.

   We arrive in Takayama in the late afternoon with time to walk into the old town before dinner, when the day visitors have gone and the lanterns come on outside the sake breweries. Up here spring arrives late, so you may find the blossom only just breaking while Tokyo's has already gone over.

7. Day 7Takayama and old JapanEarly start · Gentle day · Local craft

   Takayama's morning market runs along the riverbank from first light: pickles, miso, apples, hand carved bowls and cups of hot tea handed over by women who have been standing at the same stall for forty years. We go early, when it belongs to the town rather than to visitors.

   Afterwards we walk the Sanmachi merchant district, three lanes of black timber townhouses with latticed fronts and low doorways, built by the merchants who grew rich on Hida timber and left alone by the twentieth century. Several are open to walk through, and the sake breweries hang a cedar ball above the door when the new batch is ready.

   The afternoon is flexible: a craft workshop, the folk village on the hill, or simply a slow wander with a coffee and a Hida beef skewer. This is one of the gentler days, and after Tokyo it is a relief.

8. Day 8A day in the high alpine valley5 to 6 hrs · 1,500m · Packed lunch

   Our mountain day, spent walking a high valley in the Northern Japan Alps. The classic is Kamikochi, a flat bottomed glacial valley at around 1,500m where the Azusa river runs so clear over white gravel that the trout hang in it like they are suspended in air, with birch and larch along the banks and the Hotaka peaks standing over the whole thing still carrying winter snow.

   The walking is easy to moderate and mostly level, on good paths and boardwalks, with suspension bridges over the river and the option to go further up the valley or turn back early. Five to six hours at a gentle pace, with a packed lunch on the riverbank.

   One honest note: the valley road normally opens for the season in the second half of April, so on earlier departures we walk an alternative alpine valley in the same range instead. Your leader will confirm the plan before we leave Takayama, and it is a magnificent day either way.

9. Day 9To Kyoto, the soul of JapanTravel morning · Evening walk

   We come down from the Alps by train and cross to Kyoto, arriving in time for the afternoon. Eleven hundred years of capital city, spared the bombing, dense with temples, and still built around low wooden houses, narrow lanes and small courtyard gardens you only glimpse through an open door.

   We start gently in the old districts: teahouses along the Shirakawa canal, willows over the water, lanterns lit at dusk, and the very real possibility of seeing a geiko or a maiko walking to an appointment. We keep a respectful distance and put the phones down.

   Dinner is your own tonight, and Kyoto is a fine place to be let loose with a recommendation and a map.

10. Day 10Kyoto in blossomDawn start · Full day · Peak sakura

    An early start, and worth every minute of lost sleep. We are at Fushimi Inari not long after first light, walking up through the vermilion torii gates while the hillside is still empty and the only sound is crows and your own footsteps. Thousands of gates, each paid for by a business, wind up the mountain: we go far enough to leave the crowds behind.

    Across the city to Arashiyama for the bamboo grove, where the stems creak and knock against each other in the wind, then to the temples above it.

    In the afternoon we walk the Philosopher's Path, a canal side lane under an unbroken avenue of cherry trees, named for the professor who walked it daily to think. In blossom, with petals on the water, it is as good as this trip gets.

11. Day 11Nara and the farewell dinnerHalf day out · Easy walking · Farewell dinner

    A short train ride south to Nara, capital before Kyoto was, and home to Todaiji, an enormous timber hall containing a bronze Buddha of fifteen metres cast in the eighth century. It is one of those buildings that resets your sense of scale.

    The temples sit inside a deer park, and the deer are the other reason people come. Twelve hundred of them wander freely, they are considered messengers of the gods, and they have learned to bow for a biscuit. They are also wild animals with hard heads and no manners, so hold the crackers high and hand them over promptly.

    Back to Kyoto in the late afternoon, with an hour to pack and change before our farewell dinner: a proper meal together, a drink raised, and the strange business of saying goodbye to people you met eleven days ago.

12. Day 12DepartureDeparture day · Extensions

    Breakfast together, and then goodbyes. Kansai International is around ninety minutes from central Kyoto by the airport express, and your leader will have made sure everyone knows their train, their platform and their timings the night before.

    Plenty of guests choose to stay on. Hiroshima and Miyajima are two hours west, Osaka is on the doorstep, and Tokyo is a couple of hours back up the line if you want a last day in the city. Tell us when you book and we will help you plan the extension.