An ancient capital, guarded by three sacred mountains, transformed into beautiful flower fields.
Fujiwara Palace Ruins, the former site of Japan’s largest ancient capital, Fujiwara-kyo is located in Kashihara city, Nara. This place was picked to be the capital by The Emperor Tenmu (631-636) where he planned and built the first tile-roofed imperial palace. However, a fire in 711 burnt down the whole city and nothing remains. Today, you can only see some ongoing evacuation works and red mock pillars to mark where those buildings once was.
Therefore, the main attraction here is not looking for ancient stones and pillars, but enjoying the display of seasonal flowers. The Fujiwara Palace Ruins is an excellent place to enjoy seeing seasonal flowers in full bloom on the grounds of a square kilometer with spectacular views of Yamato Sanzan – the three sacred mountains of Nara.
On the grounds of the Ruins, there are large fields filled with rapeseed in spring, lotus in summer and cosmos in autumn. There are also many cherry trees and maple trees around the grounds.
Spring
In spring, visitors can admire two wide fields of rapeseed flowers in bloom against a backdrop of cherry blossoms. These cherry trees lining the rapeseed flower fields lent a pale shade of pink to yellow. You can walk under the canopy of cherry trees with the rapeseed flower field on the other side. The view is just as breathtaking.
Summer
In summer, pink lotus flowers and orange cosmos bloom. The Lotus is considered the sacred flower in Buddhism, only blooming in the morning. You can see the extremely graceful lotus flower in July.
Autumn
In mid-September, pink and white cosmos flowers start blooming which indicates the start of Autumn. There are plenty of beautiful cosmos fields in the area, however, the one at the Fujiwara Ruins is exceptional.
Address : Takadono-cho, Kashihara-shi
Access : 30-minute walk from Kintetsu Miminashi Station or Unebogoryomae Station.
Access by Bus : Take a Community bus from Kintetsu Yamato-Yagi Station to Fujiwara-kyo Shiryoshitsu-mae stop.