Yahiko Park begins where the station platform ends — you are inside the grounds within a minute of stepping off the train. The peak is early to mid-November, two ten-day blocks and no more, so this is a place that rewards decisiveness. The park was laid out in 1918 by the Echigo Railway, two years after the line reached the village, and now serves as the outer grounds of Yahiko Shrine, some forty thousand tsubo in all.

The part people come for in autumn is a single fold of ground called Momijidani. A vermilion bridge, the Kangetsukyo, crosses it. Red paint against red leaves sounds like a mistake and is not: the two reds are different enough that each makes the other legible.

The valley is lit after dark through the season, and the lighting changes this place more than it changes most gardens, because the bridge takes the light and the slope behind it does not. If you have an evening to spend somewhere, spend it here.

The park runs through the year on a rotation — Somei-yoshino cherry in April, double-flowered cherry into May, fireflies in summer — and this is the last turn of it. The year's programme closes with red. Arrive by train, walk one minute, and watch the finale.