Nara Park (Sakura Season) - SweeTrip Japan

Nara Park

(In the Sakura Season)

Nara Park is one of the must-see areas in Nara City.

Table of Contents

1 About the park
2 In Spring
3 Where to enjoy Sakura in Nara Park
4 Access
5 Information

About the park

Nara Park (奈良公園, Nara Kōen) is a large park in central Nara, the vast area covers 660 hectares and the park etablished in 1880. The park is renowned for its free-roaming deer.

Nara’s over 1200 deer have become a symbol of the city and have even been designated as a National Treasure. Deer crackers are for sale around the park for ￥200 , and some deer have learned to bow to visitors to ask to be fed.
But some of the Nara’s deer can be aggressive if they think you will feed them, so make sure not to tease them with food.

There are few spots inside the park including;
Todaiji Temple, Kasuga Taisha shrine, Kofukuji Temple and Nara National Museum (museum on Japanese Buddhist art)

In Spring

In spring the mountains, parks, and villages are shaded white and pink when the cherry blossoms are at their peak.
About 1700 cherry trees are planted across spacious Nara Park, turning the park into a living fairy tale with the deer around .

Cherry blossoms around Nara normally begin to bloom during the last week of March and their flowers can be enjoyed until mid-April, with their peak in early April.

Like in fairy tale

Where to enjoy Sakura in Nara Park

There are few spots around the park to see this little heaven of sakura and deer.
If you come in Earl-April you can enjoy in most places at the park.
Since we came in mid-April, we had limited places to see.
Here the specific place were we took our pictures –

If you walk from Nara Kintetsu Station, you go inside the park, and when you see the first “Nara Kasugano” building, then you turn left until you see the second buuilding of *Nara Kasugano” , there you will see a sakura spot like in our pictures.

Access

Nara Park is a 5 minute walk from Kintetsu Nara Station or about a 20 minute walk from JR Nara Station.
Alternatively, there also Nara City Loop bus, runs from both stations to Nara Park. It also makes several stops at different locations within the park.