Japan 2018 Fall Foliage Tour

What new and upcoming garden tours do I have planned for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019? In May, I will return to Italy for the ninth time to lead a very special Islands and Lakes Garden Tour, starting in Lugano and moving quickly to the Milanese lakes. You can see details here. From there, we will head to Sardinia...

My next garden tour will be an exclusive 13-day adventure to Japan to see spectacular fall foliage colour, visit picturesque temple sites, famous and historic locations as well as enjoy seasonal festivals and other cultural highlights. If you've never been to Japan, this is the perfect tour for you - rich in content and diversity, safe; well-planned; professionally guided and designed...

To start our first full day in Kyoto, we went to Ryoan-ji Temple, mainly to see the beautiful and famous raked gravel and stone courtyard garden. The garden measures only 25m from east to west and 10m from south to north and contains 15 stones, or at least you are asked to see if you can see 15 stones as...

My Japan tour got under way with a walking tour of the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku followed by a fun welcome dinner at a yakitori restaurant. Kabukicho is the entertainment district, sometimes compared to Amsterdam’s Red Light area, but with a lot less accent on “love shops” and more emphasis on restaurants, bars and nightclubs. This is partly why Kabukicho...

The first place we went when we arrived in Hiroshima was to the site where the atom bomb exploded at 8:15 in the morning on August 6, 1945. Today, there is a small monument on the street next to a hospital, directly below the sky where the bomb exploded about 600 meters above ground, instantly killing 80,000 people, many of...

Before going to Japan for the second time, I have been practising my origami skills. I love the way a simple square coloured piece of paper can be magically transformed by a series of crisp folds into an object of surprising elegance and beauty. In Japan, I am hoping to learn a few more paper-folding skills. But in preparation, I have...

From Tokyo, we travelled by express train to Matsumoto, a city with views of the Japanese Alps, which were snow-capped and beautiful when we arrived. Apparently, Nagano Prefecture, in which Matsumoto is located, is one of the most desirable parts of Japan to live, we were told, because of the quality of life and freedom from catastrophic weather as well...

I am head over heels in love with Japan. I don’t know why this happened now rather than the first time I visited this most excellent country four years ago. But I am now irrevocably smitten. I cannot stop saying how wonderful Japan is. I have been in a perpetual state of admiration ever since I set foot in...

The Meiji Shrine in Shiibuya was only a short ride from our hotel in Shinjuku. Unlike yesterday, the sky was blue and the sun was shining brightly. It was a delight to gently strolled through the dappled woodland leading to the Shinto shine. We saw the impressive, towering torii gate, the tradional Shinto gateway indicating that as we move towards the...