Gardens of Nara Park

Nara Park is the biggest park I’ve ever seen in my life. There are many very famous and less famous temples, such as Taisha and single shrines, on its territory. In addition to that, there are few landscape gardens that are good places to relax. In Nara Park, you can meet deer everywhere you go, see turtles in the pond, birds and beautiful plants.

Nara is a very touristy town. When I visited Nara, tens of buses with school-age children came on excursions, so there were thousands of visitors in the main places of interest. To take a rest, I went to look at the landscaped gardens. The first one was Yoshiken Garden.

Yoshikien is a traditional Japanese garden located in central Nara. It is named after the Yoshikigawa River, a small river that runs beside the garden. There are three unique gardens within Yoshikien: a pond garden, a moss garden, and a tea ceremony garden. For foreign tourists, the entry to Yoshikien is free!

I spent a nice quiet time at Yoshikien as I was almost alone there. Then I went to Isuien garden which is more famous and popular. Isuien means "garden founded on water," and the garden's name came from the fact that its ponds are fed by the Yoshikigawa River. Isuien is divided into two parts, a front garden and a rear garden, with a number of tea houses.