It use to be that you had to go to Upstate New York or the Minnesota North Shore to see the Fall tree colors. That was more than 30 years ago, but now with all the ornamental maples, apple, cherry, aspen ... trees you hardly need to go outside of the city limits. Seattle has spectacular Fall colors. And now I can add Kyoto as a city with beautiful Fall colors. Just by chance we hit the peak color season, end of November to beginning of December. Just Lucky,
One new tree for me is the Ginkgo, (it's getting hard to remember the spelling of that one).
Even when the leaves fall it is magical.
But with the maples the contrast is special. This shot is from the Kyoto Imperial Garden. Kyoto was the Emperor's residency until the Meiji Restoration in 1868 when the figure head Emperor resumed control of Japan and the Emperor's residency was moved to Tokyo.
But in Kyoto the Maples were the big hit. Kyoto has a population of 1.5 million but 40 million visitors per year. Definitely a tourist town.
We were just part of the tourists from all over just strolling the parks.
The park pathways take you to some photographic musts, just sorting out the pictures later becomes a chore, too many pictures not enough space.
The fall colors are spectacular. Does this mean that fall is the best time to visit? What about cherry blossom time? I would opt for the time when the crowds of tourists are smaller.
ReplyDeleteThe crowds were tough, so we tried to do the visits on the weekdays, the weekends are the worst. Cherry Blossoms are probably best on the UW campus!
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