Hirosaki Castle in Hirosaki Park is one of the main attractions in the city, not only because of the enormity of the park but because of the beauty of its gardens and buildings. You feel totally at peace and connected to nature while walking around the property.

Noah was the only one to break the silence there 🙂 – but we gave him a break. Recently we have been to many places in Japan where we have had to ask him not to run around in order to avoid breaking things, or not to speak loudly so he doesn’t disturb other people, etc. But now we were in a park with plenty of space for him to run and sing, in his own loud way, so we didn’t want to steal his thunder. In fact everyone that passed by us enjoyed seeing him running around like crazy 🙂

Hirosaki Castle and its park were going to be the second stop of the day, but became the first …

But going back to the beginning, the plan was first to visit Hirosaki Apple Park and then later go to Hirosaki Castle and park. We were very close to the bus stop that would take us to the park, which was, coincidentally, in front of the castle, but we couldn’t find the exact place where the bus would stop and then we realized that we were too late to take it! So we left Hirosaki Apple Park for the next day, to allow enough time for the visit, and spent the rest of the day at Hirosaki Castle and its park.

It turned out to be fine, as the property is enormous and we needed a few hours to enjoy everything. The next day, we found out that the bus stop to the Apple Park was just a few meters away from where we were waiting, but it was inside a property rather than in the street, which was misleading.

Our visit to Hirosaki Park and Hirosaki Castle

The best season to visit Hirosaki Park is during spring when the colors of the more than 2,600 cherry trees decorate the park beautifully.

But we were there during autumn and you might think that we wouldn’t be able to see trees in different colors. Well, that was not the case. We were able to see many trees in different colors, some of them in vibrant red, some in brown, some green … It is certainly very pleasing to the eye.

After a nice walk through the trail of trees, where Noah was enjoying full contact with nature, we headed to Hirosaki Castle which is located right in the middle of the park.

This is a tower from the Edo Period (1603 – 1868), and it is an architectural treasure, one of only 12 still in existence in Japan.

Just across the inner river surrounding the castle is the Hirosaki Castle Arboretum, where hundreds of thousands of trees of many different species are cultivated.

This part of the park was being prepared for a special festival that was set to occur a few days after our visit, called Chrysanthemum and Autumn Foliage Festival. Although we couldn’t see the flowers in bloom, that part of the park already had different colors. We were also lucky to see it with hardly any visitors around, and we imagine that during the festival that part of the park must be completely packed with visitors.

Last but not least: the impressive Fujita Memorial Park

Finally we visited the Fujita Memorial Park, which is located just outside the main park. This is a beautiful Japanese-style garden, built in 1919.

There we were able to enter the house, led by our tour guide Noah, and visit the entirety of the garden, which is unbelievably beautiful. The attention to detail in every inch of the garden is amazing.

There’s a section of high ground where the house is located, and from there it is possible to see Mount Iwaki.

The lower ground has a path, that we walked in its entirety, with beautiful trees as well as a very nice waterfall under a bridge that gave us amazing shots.

When we arrived at Hirosaki Castle and its park we hadn’t imagined that we would spend so much time enjoying the whole perimeter, and we were just glad that we hadn’t been able to go to Hirosaki Apple Park that day, otherwise we wouldn’t have had that much time to enjoy the park.