Hitachi's cherry season climbs. It starts at the station and finishes on the hill above the town, and the gap between the two is about a week.

Heiwa-dori is the road that runs from Hitachi station to Route 6, roughly a kilometre of dual carriageway with about a hundred and twenty Somei-yoshino down both sides. When they open, the branches meet over the traffic. It is a working road rather than a park path, so you see the flowers between buses, from a pavement, with the lights changing. The prefecture gives this stretch as late March into the first days of April, which makes it one of the earlier places in the region.

Kamine Park sits higher, on the ridge behind the town, with something like a thousand trees. Its season is the first half of April into the middle of the month. There is a zoo in the same grounds, and a small amusement park, so people come for the flowers and end up on the ferris wheel.

The two are a short drive apart and the only real difference between them is height. The town flowers first and the hill follows. If you go up in the week the road below has started to drop its petals, you get a second full bloom, in the same city, from a place you can see the first one from. It is a small thing to arrange a trip around. It works anyway.