Kanazawa 2019: Kenrokuen Garden (兼六園) at night

Kanazawa is home to the Kenrokuen Garden, one of Japan’s premier landscape gardens, and on certain days in the autumn you can tour the garden for free at night. My second night in Kanazawa happened to be on one of the days when the garden was open at night and I took advantage of the free entry. The following morning I’d returned to Kenrokuen for a daytime tour and when I publish the post about that visit next week I’ll go into the full details of the garden’s history and design. I had visited Kenrokuen previously in 2017, so I was familiar the garden but it was a novel experience to be back at Kenrokuen at night and trying to remember what everything was in the dark. For me the most notable views that night were of the teahouse on Kasumigaike Pond and of the pine trees with their supported branches. Not all of the garden was open that night but I was able to tour a large chunk of Kenrokuen and it was a good way for me to end the day.