Flowers in Iwata (2) - 800 year old wisteria trees in Gyokoji Temple

After visiting the Museum of Fragrance, Iwata, I went back to the bus station to take the free shuttle bus to Gyokoji Temple, where wisteria blossoms were in full bloom. They are called “Yuya no Nagafuji” or Yuya’s long wisteria and considered more than 800 years old. Yuya is the name of a princess who is said to have planted the trees.

The bus left the bus stop at 15:15. It took less than 15 minutes to get there. There were much more people in the temple than I had expected, taking pictures here and there. This is one of the old trees that are one of the natural monuments designated by Shizuoka Prefecture.

This is Yuya or Yuyagozen who is one of the characters in an old Japanese novel “Heike-monogatari” and lived in this area.

I saw white wisteria blossoms for the first time.

Behind the temple, there is Toyoda Yuya Memorial Park. This park has also wisteria trellises, and there were some groups eating and drinking under the trees just like at the time of cherry-blossom viewing.

This twisting tree was interesting.

Yuya no Nagafuji is worth seeing. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so I couldn’t see sunlight coming through these wisteria trellises as I expected. I remember seeing such a scene in some other place when I was very little and how beautiful it was. Maybe I’ll come again in the future when it is fine.