Sarahqureshi11 · Japanese okayama garden view.JPG · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Pune-Okayama Friendship Garden
A large Japanese-style garden built on the Korakuen model, on the Sinhagad road.
Pune-Okayama Friendship Garden
The Pune-Okayama Friendship Garden is a large Japanese-style stroll garden on the Sinhagad road, built under Pune’s sister-city relationship with Okayama in Japan and modelled on Korakuen, the seventeenth-century garden there. It is also known locally as the Pu La Deshpande Garden. What makes it worth an hour is that it is a genuine attempt at the form — water, stone, bridges, shaped planting and a circulating path — rather than a municipal park with a Japanese name. It is used heavily by the city in the early morning and the evening, and it is one of the few places in Pune designed to be walked slowly.
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What to see
A stroll garden, which means the path is the design.
The garden
- The circulating path, which is how a stroll garden is meant to be read.
- Water, stone arrangements and bridges through the grounds.
- The shaped planting, which is at its best after the monsoon.
Its context
- The Korakuen model from Okayama, Pune’s sister city, which the layout follows.
- The canal-side setting on the Sinhagad road.
Getting there
South-west of the centre on the Sinhagad road.
Arriving
- App cabs and auto-rickshaws reach the gate directly.
- It is on the way out of the city towards Khadakwasla and Sinhagad, so it combines with that direction.
Best time
Early morning, and after the rains.
When to go
- Early morning, when the garden is quiet and in use by walkers.
- After the monsoon, roughly September to February, when the planting is at its best.
- Evenings are pleasant but busier.
Visitor intelligence
An hour, properly used.
Practical
- It is ticketed and has set opening hours — check them rather than arriving late.
- Allow about an hour; the point is to walk the circuit rather than cut across it.
- Combine it with the Khadakwasla and Sinhagad road rather than doubling back into the city.
Nearby
South-west Pune and the Sinhagad road.
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