Photo spot in Yokohama
The Yamate hill and Harbor View Park
The hill of the old foreign settlement: Western-style houses, a rose garden and a lookout over the harbour and the Bay Bridge.
About The Yamate hill and Harbor View Park
Get directionsAfter the port opened in 1859, foreign merchants and diplomats built their homes on Yamate, the bluff above the harbour, and several of the Western-style houses survive, restored and open to visitors, with gardens and wooden verandas. Walking between them gives a backdrop of clapboard, shutters and lamp-lit streets that feels closer to a European seaside town than to Tokyo.
At the harbour end of the hill, Harbor View Park — Minato-no-Mieru-Oka — has an English-style rose garden and a lookout over the port and the Yokohama Bay Bridge. The roses bloom in May and again in autumn, and the garden is one of the city's favourite places for engagement and wedding portraits.
The hill is quiet on weekday mornings. It connects downhill to the Motomachi shopping street and to Chinatown, so a session can start here and end by the water.
Best time to shoot
Spring and autumn mornings, above all when the roses bloom in May and October
Tips
The Western houses keep their own opening hours and rules for photography inside, so check them before planning interior shots. The walk up from Motomachi-Chukagai station takes about ten minutes.
Recent work in Yokohama
Portfolio shots by photographers covering this area
Photographers who shoot at The Yamate hill and Harbor View Park
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Other spots in Yokohama
Osanbashi Pier and the Minato Mirai skyline
A wooden roof deck over the cruise terminal, open day and night, looking straight across the water at the Landmark Tower, the Ferris wheel and the sail-shaped hotel.
The Red Brick Warehouses and the Kishamichi promenade
Two red-brick port warehouses from the 1910s on the waterfront, reached along a promenade laid on an old railway line.
Yokohama Chinatown
Japan's largest Chinatown: painted gates, red lanterns and two temples packed into a few blocks, a short walk from the harbour.
Ready to book?
Our concierge team will hand-pick 2-3 photographers who know The Yamate hill and Harbor View Park — free of charge.
