Biei

Biei is a town of rolling farmland north of Furano, whose patchwork hills of potato, wheat and beans became famous through advertising photographs in the 1970s. Several of the individual trees have names and their own car parks.

Overview

The landscape is working farmland, and the fields change colour with the rotation rather than for effect; the Blue Pond south of the town is an accidental beauty spot, a reservoir built after a 1988 eruption of Tokachi whose water turned turquoise from dissolved aluminium. Visitors walking into fields for photographs have damaged crops badly enough that some farmers have cut down their famous trees, which is worth remembering at the fence line.

Highlights

Rent a bicycle at the station for the Patchwork Road and the Panorama Road; the hills are real hills and an electric bike is worth the extra. The Blue Pond is lit on winter evenings and is ten minutes by car. Stay on roads and paths: the fields are someone’s income and the signs asking you to keep out are not decorative.

Overview

Highlights

Location