Yoshino is the most famous cherry-blossom mountain in Japan, and it earns the fame. Tens of thousands of trees, planted over centuries as offerings by pilgrims, climb the ridge in four zones, so the bloom moves up the mountain through April like a slow pink tide. But Yoshino is older and stranger than a flower festival. It is the gateway to the Kii mountains, a vast tangle of steep forested ranges where mountain ascetics of the Shugendo tradition have walked for more than a thousand years, and the pilgrimage path of Omine runs along the high ridges to Kumano, passing places so sacred that women were long banned from entering. The Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range were inscribed by UNESCO in 2004.
Yoshimizu Shrine sits on the slope above the town, a small building with a turbulent history. In 1185 the warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune hid here while fleeing from his brother, and in the fourteenth century Emperor Go-Daigo took refuge in Yoshino and set up a rival court, the Southern Court. The shrine's rooms are simple, with low ceilings and old screens, and from the terrace you can look down over the valley. Hideyoshi held a lavish cherry blossom party here in 1594.
Riders come here for the mountains. The roads from Nara and Osaka climb into the Kii range through cedar forest, with long curves, tunnels and drops into deep valleys. Route 169 runs south toward Kumano along the Totsukawa and Kitayama rivers, a classic long ride with few services. In cherry season the road to Yoshino jams with cars and tour buses, so come at dawn or after the bloom, and in winter parts of the high roads are icy.
Yoshino has fewer than ten thousand people, with a handful of shops, tea houses and inns serving kuzu mochi and persimmon-leaf sushi. Fuel stations are in the valley town, so fill up before going further into the mountains. The ropeway and the upper slopes are best on a weekday.