Tokyo German Village

A large countryside park in Sodegaura, on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba – not in Tokyo, despite the name, and not especially German either beyond a certain rustic-European flavour. What it actually is: a hillside of flower fields, small rides, animals and pick-your-own crops, spread across enough ground that you drive between parts of it.

The Four Areas

Lake Area is where you come in, through a European-style garden. A circular rose garden holds around 250 varieties, and there is a boating pond with swan boats, a sports ground, and small houses of insects, reptiles, fish and soft-furred animals to handle.

Country Area is lawn and slope. There is putting golf, a playground, and a Ferris wheel forty metres up with the whole park below it. The flower planting on the hillside here is the most photographed in the park.

Market Area holds the food, the shops and the dinosaurs – a ride runs through them – along with craft workshops, a stage, and a garden built around the five senses. It is the centre of things in summer, when a stream runs, and in winter, when the illumination goes up.

Park Area is aimed squarely at children: a woodland adventure course, a small zoo, and a cluster of rides – a kids' coaster, grass sledging, swings, a mini train, trampolines, teacups, archery.

Flowers Through the Year

The flower fields are the reason many people come, and something is out in most months. Rape blossom in late winter and early spring, then tulips in April, snapdragons and petunias from May, lilies at the turn of summer, sunflowers in August, and cosmos and marigolds through October into November. Moss phlox spreads around the boating pond in spring.

Picking and Making

Harvest activities rotate with the season – shiitake, wood ear mushrooms, peanuts, sweet potatoes, potatoes, mandarins, strawberries, peaches. Most run at weekends and holidays only, and most are seasonal, so it is worth checking what is on before making a special trip.

The craft workshops cover leather, candles, resin, chalk art, aromatics and glass. Again, mostly weekends.

Practical Notes

Attractions are charged individually or through a day pass, and several take cash only, which is worth knowing in a park otherwise happy with cards.

There is a first aid room with a nappy-changing table, a place to feed a baby, hot water and a microwave, though it is unstaffed. Wheelchairs and pushchairs can be borrowed free, and there are powered mobility scooters for hire through an app – useful here, since the site is large and hilly.

Last admission to most attractions is late afternoon, extended on event evenings.