Gora Park
- Garden/Green Space/Nature
The why: A Western-style landscape park on Hakone's steep hillside with a French fountain garden, rose beds, tropical greenhouses, and hands-on craft workshops — a relaxed pause between the Hakone Tozan Railway and the cablecar up to Owakudani.
Gotcha / logistics: Free with the Hakone Free Pass (otherwise 650 yen). The Crafthouse workshops (glass blowing, pottery) cost 1000-5000 yen extra and take 30-60 minutes — plan ahead if interested.
Gora Park is a Western-style landscape park located on the steep slope above Gora Station, the terminal station of the Hakone Tozan Railway. It is a relaxing place to unwind and enjoy the mountain scenery between the train journey up from Hakone-Yumoto and the cablecar ride continuing up toward Owakudani and Lake Ashi.
The park follows a French formal garden design, unusual for Hakone’s otherwise Japanese aesthetic. A large central fountain anchors the layout, flanked by symmetrical beds that include a rose garden that blooms from late May through early July and again in autumn. The steep terrain is terraced into multiple levels, giving different vantage points over the surrounding mountains and the Gora valley below.
Two greenhouses add variety to the visit. One houses a tropical botanical garden with orchids, bromeliads, and other plants that would not survive Hakone’s cold winters. The other contains a flower garden with seasonal displays. Both provide warm refuge on Hakone’s frequent cool, misty days.
The Crafthouse offers hands-on workshops in several media: glass blowing, glass etching, pottery, ceramics painting, and dried flower arrangement. Activities range from 1000 to 5000 yen and take 30 minutes to an hour to complete. These are particularly popular with families and couples — making something with your hands in a mountain park is a memorable change of pace from sightseeing.
A restaurant overlooking the main fountain serves light meals and drinks, and the Hakuun-do Chaen teahouse offers traditional Japanese tea and sweets in a more contemplative setting. The juxtaposition of French garden and Japanese teahouse reflects Hakone’s long history as a meeting point of Western and Japanese sensibilities — the area has attracted foreign visitors since the Meiji era.
Gora Park sits directly below the Hakone Museum of Art, which can be reached by continuing uphill or taking one stop on the Hakone Tozan Cablecar to Koenkami Station. Combining both in a single visit makes for a pleasant morning or afternoon.
Hours: 9:00-17:00 (until 16:30 December-February). Admission ends 30 minutes before closing. Closed: Infrequent irregular closing days. Admission: 650 yen (free with Hakone Free Pass). Access: 5-minute walk uphill from Gora Station (Hakone Tozan Railway). 35 minutes from Hakone-Yumoto, 460 yen. Trains every 15-20 minutes.
More in Hakone
Hakone Ropeway (Sounzan to Togendai)
The aerial gondola from Sounzan over the Owakudani vent field down to Togendai on Lake Ashi — the segment of the loop where Mt. Fuji, the active volcano, and the lake all show up in the same frame. About 30 minutes end-to-end with a stop at Owakudani.
Hakone Shrine & Heiwa no Torii
The forest shrine on Lake Ashi's southern shore, with its red Heiwa no Torii standing in the water — one of the most photographed gates in Japan. The shrine itself dates to the 8th century and was a stop for travelers on the old Tokaido road praying for safe passage over the mountains.
Lake Ashi sightseeing cruise
The pirate-ship ferry across the caldera lake created by the same eruption that built Owakudani. It's a working leg of the Hakone loop, not a sightseeing add-on, and the deck angle on the southbound run gives the cleanest Fuji-over-Ashinoko shot of the trip.
Hakone Open-Air Museum
Japan's first open-air sculpture museum, opened 1969, with monumental works by Henry Moore, Rodin, and Niki de Saint Phalle set against the Hakone mountain backdrop. The Picasso Pavilion holds one of the world's largest collections of his ceramics.
Owakudani volcanic vents
The active steam-vent field that gave Hakone its hot springs in the first place — a treeless, sulfur-yellow caldera floor where the geology stops being theoretical. On clear days Mt. Fuji sits directly behind the vents.
Pola Museum of Art
A largely subterranean museum in the Sengokuhara beech forest, designed by Nikken Sekkei to disappear into the national park. The collection is world-class Impressionism — Monet, Renoir, Picasso — plus a major glass-art holding, all lit by a glass atrium that filters light the way the surrounding canopy does.