Kobe Herb gardens

We Rusters are a perverse crew. We have one staffer who is so afraid of hospitals he once passed out in one and not as a patient, Bob lives in a marina but has no interest in boats and I have large garden but my knowledge of and interest in plants are scanty.

However wherever I travel I always enjoy a trip around a botanical garden. I suppose it’s the atmosphere of serenity as opposed to the tourist crush and attendant knick-knack shops sightseeing that attracts me.

So I signed up for the Nunobiki Herb Gardens Tour. These are Japan’s largest herb gardens with 75,000 herbs and flowers blooming throughout the year. There are 14 garden areas where visitors are welcomed by seasonal herbs and flowers arranged according to themes.

Like everything here it’s well organised with no queues, comfortable cable cars taking you to the top from which you slowly descend by foot.

We stopped at a cafe where of course one member of our group left his back pack. No trip is complete without such an occurrence but fortunately the WhatsApp group set up alerted the person immediately.

Above are some photos of the gardens.

In the evening as it was our last night in Kobe we went to the Steak House restaurant for a full-on banquet of lobster, foie gras and Kobe beef which set us back £300 per person.

It was however fabulous.