Furano and Biei: Lavender, the Blue Pond and the Patchwork Hills

Furano's lavender is the image that sells Hokkaido summer, and the season is narrow — roughly mid-July into early August. Outside it the fields are green or cut, and a lot of visitors arrive in late June or late August expecting purple and find neither.

Farm Tomita is the best known and the most developed, with several fields planted in colour bands so that even outside peak lavender there is something flowering. It is free to enter, it is very busy in season, and it has a lavender soft-serve that is genuinely good rather than a novelty.

Because the window is so tight, this is one of the few places in Japan worth checking a bloom report for before committing a day to it.'s craft rooms are the answer: kumiko woodworking, silver jewellery forging in a projection-mapped studio, or kimono dressing with a private tea room.

The Shirogane Blue Pond near Biei is not a natural lake. It formed after erosion-control works were built on the Biei river in the late 1980s following an eruption of nearby Mount Tokachi — water pooled behind the barriers and a pond appeared where none had been planned.

The colour comes from aluminium and other minerals in the water scattering light, and it shifts between turquoise and a deep milky blue depending on weather, season and light. Dead larch trunks stand in the water, which is what makes the photographs.

It is small and it is a short walk from the car park, so it is a fifteen-minute stop rather than a destination. Overcast days often produce a stronger colour than bright sun, which is the opposite of what people assume.

In winter the pond is frozen and floodlit after dark, which is a completely different and much quieter experience than the summer coach traffic.

Biei is a landscape of rolling farmland — the patchwork hills — where different crops in adjacent fields make broad bands of colour across the contours. It is unlike anywhere else in Japan and looks closer to Tuscany or the Palouse.

Individual trees here have become landmarks with names: the Ken and Mary Tree, the Seven Stars Tree, the Christmas Tree, each named after the advertisement it appeared in. Chasing them one by one is a fairly odd way to spend a day, and driving the hill roads without a checklist is better.

The important practical point: these sights are spread over many kilometres of rural road with sparse buses. Furano and Biei are the part of Hokkaido where not having a car hurts most, and where a day tour genuinely earns its price rather than just saving effort.

From Sapporo, Furano and Biei are around two hours or more each way, which makes an independent day trip long. Most people either take a full-day tour that loops both plus Asahiyama Zoo, or stay a night in Furano or Asahikawa.

If you are staying, Furano has its own draws beyond flowers: cheese and wine production, and in winter a well-regarded ski resort that is far quieter than Niseko.

The honest summary is that this region is a summer destination with a winter alternative, and the shoulder seasons are thin. May and October here are pleasant countryside and not much else.