Photos: Mr.ちゅらさん · CC BY-SA 4.0 (1, 3, 4, 5) · shikabane taro · CC BY 3.0
Since 1883 the Japan Mint has opened a 560 m one-way riverside path through its head office grounds for about a week in April. It is lined with around 140 varieties of late-flowering cherry collected there since the early Meiji years, many of them rare satozakura.
Why it's unique
A national mint opening its works yard to the public for a cherry walk is unmatched in Japan, and the concentration of rare cultivars is the Mint's own claim.
This is not ordinary hanami: the varieties are mostly double-flowered and late, so you see blossoms that most cherry spots never plant, a week or more after the city's ordinary cherries have gone.
Before you go
It is now free but reservation-only, in 30-minute slots that open in mid-March and sell out; walk-ups are refused. Each year the Mint names a "flower of the year" (2026 was Gyoikō, the green cherry).
Go in the last hour before the 19:15 close for lights on the blossom. It is late: the varieties are mostly double-flowered and peak a week or more after Osaka's Somei-Yoshino.
