Seasons1 of 4
Nara's spring officially starts at this tree. The weeping cherry standing beside the approach to Himuro Shrine opens before any other cherry in the city, which earned it the name Nara ichiban zakura, first cherry of Nara, and turns a quiet shrine into a queue for about ten days in late March. It leans over the pond in front of the gate, so the flowers arrive twice, once above you and once in the water. The shrine underneath it is stranger than the tree. It stands on the site of a Nara period ice house and enshrines the deity of ice: blocks were cut in winter, packed into a pit insulated with straw and kept through the summer for the imperial court, and ice merchants still come here to pray for their trade. Every year at the end of May the shrine holds a festival where offerings are made in ice, including whole fish frozen inside blocks. The tree is young by the standards of this page, and its hundred years rests on a single source, so treat the number lightly and the timing seriously.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Himuro Shrine, 1-4 Kasugano-cho, Nara 630-8212
You can recognise it by the way it leans out over the pond in front of the shrine gate. It stands beside the approach to Himuro Shrine.
Bus to Himuro Jinja / Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, which stops at the gate, or about 15 min walk from Nara station
In bloom
late March, when it opens before every other cherry in Nara
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
