Come Explore La Collina In Omihachiman City, Japan

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Come with us as we make our way from our hotel in Kyoto to Omihachiman City, the home of La Collina, the flagship store of the Taneya group, the largest confectionery manufacturing and direct sales company in Japan.

We traveled by train for about 90 minutes and then figured out how to hail a taxi once we arrived in town. From the train station to La Collina it was maybe a 10 minute taxi ride away. You could walk there if you wanted or perhaps find a nearby bike rental, but we chose to make life easy and get a taxi since we planed to walk to and around the town after visiting La Collina.

When you arrive and start walking up the path to the building you are immersed in all the greenery that surrounds La Collina.

What To Do At La Collina?

There is so much to see and do when you visit La Collina, you can honestly spend a couple hours or half a day here. In the center of the grounds there is a central location with a panoramic view of La Collina, an Earth Tower created by Terunobu Fujimori, Rice Terraces, and 3 buildings to explore.

All the buildings have so many baked goods to try that I was in heaven. When we started planning our trip to Japan I straight out told my mom I want to try as much baked goods as I could. I honestly prefer baked goods and sweets from Japan over anything from the U.S. Getting back on topic there were 3 different buildings that had baked goods and desserts you could buy. They also had an outdoor food garage area to enjoy seasonal sweets, snacks and drinks and multiple other places to dine.

If you make it to La Collina absolutely DO NOT LEAVE without buying their baumkuchen. We bought just one to split to try it and regretted not buying more. We eventually found a store in Tokyo Station after some searching and bought a multi-pack to bring back home.

Another item you have to try is their pizza. Once again it was so frickin good!

After we walked around and sampled a variety of treats and watched them make baumkuchen we decided we should probably start the walk back to town. There were still many things to do and, as always, never enough time to do it.

We walked for about 20 minutes down very quiet residential streets, passing a temple, and eventually arriving at the river where many businesses are centered and boat rides are available. We also walked by the cable car that takes you to the top of Mount Hachiman. However, we were visiting during spider season and my mom is a complete arachnophobe and worried about critters being in/on/around the cable car and on the mountain trails. So, we made the hard choice to skip that, and instead, we made our way to the bus and then to the train station to head to Kyoto Botanical Gardens (about a 90 minute train ride). Both La Collina and Omihachiman City are a hidden gem worth visiting during your time in Kyoto. We squeezed the fun into a 1/2 day, but it could easily be a full day trip.