After a long day exploring Nagasaki my route had now taken me behind Oura Church to Glover Park. I wasnt sure exactly what this was. My book referred to this as a park with one or two former europeans houses. I thought this meant it was a big landscaped park with some buildings you could walk around from outside. I was quite surprised that this is in fact a collection of colonial homes that you can tour from the inside. When I arrived the entrance ticket was 600Y ($7.50) which I thought was quite expensive just to walk around a park not realizing what was inside. I also thought "a park" would have free entry. Once you go in you enter up a long escalator. This is in two stages as its quite long so you proceed on a second escalator. There are good views of the city as you ascend. Video : Glover Park Escalator view of Nagasaki http://youtu.be/TbN0rYKcQgM At the top is a large home by a pond. You were able to go inside as I saw people on the upper terrace so I wanted to explore. Inside was a charming colonial home with period furniture From the upper terrace were also good views of the city and the golden gate bridge style river span bridge Following the walking trail it took me past another period home. This was used for costume dress up which you can rent and have your photo taken with There continued to be more period homes with antique victorian era furniture inside. I had to look carefully at my park map and plan my route so that I could see all the houses Some homes had old family photographs of the original inhabitants and personal effects. The layout of the inside living rooms was very English style and reminiscent of how people still furnish their homes today in the UK There were also many nice antique fireplace with ceramic or marble surrounds. Our house in England had this growing up so it was quite nostalgic. In many old UK homes this is common so not just for those of the wealthy In one end of the park were two more homes by themselves. One was more American ranch style with a long outside porch, while the other was two storey more english style. Again they were lavishly furnished with some family photos The final home was quite popular being one of the larger and with a very scenic flowerbed outside. The interior was rather confusing as there were many rooms to explore. It took several times walking around to find all the hidden rooms in this labyrinth of a design Again more lavish antique furniture which would be any antique dealers heaven From the outside gardens was a good view of the city and other local landmarks such as Oura Church which I had just visited By this time I was quite tired from walking all day and just wanted to leave as it was still some distance to the tram stop to get back to the hotel. I was just going to exit out the park but decided to follow the route to the end I was lucky as the last building had been converted into a museum of performing folk arts which I would have otherwise missed. The first large hall had displays of many parade floats There were also chinese dragons and other parade items Back outside was a very touristy plaza with Dutch architecture. There were many tourist shops and groups of tourists looking around. Glover Park was not what I was expecting. It was a collection of at least seven homes that you could go inside and more which are used as restaurants or other uses. This was quite a collection of European homes in Nagasaki as I had already visited some earlier today on Hollander Slope. I didnt know there was this much European heritage in Nagasaki as most westerners only know of it as where the second atomic bomb dropped It was also quite reminiscent of the colonial homes I had visited in Kobe on my first visit to Japan in 2011. There they had consulates of every major European power as well as the US, Cuba, China, and Panama You can read about that entry and see more pics here http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-e ntries/londone7/1/1297327156/tpod.html