Sapporo

Sapporo is Japan's great northern city, laid out on a confident grid in the Meiji era and still carrying the openness of a frontier capital. Snow defines it — metres of it settle over an average winter — yet the city wears the season lightly, its boulevards warmed by ramen counters, jazz bars, and the long green ribbon of Ōdōri Park. Hokkaido's farms and fishing ports supply a table unmatched in Japan: uni from the Shakotan coast, hairy crab, lamb grilled over charcoal. There is a particular pleasure in watching snowfall through a window in Susukino, whisky in hand, with nowhere one is obliged to be.

ANA and JAL fly the Haneda–New Chitose corridor almost hourly, among the busiest air routes in the world, with a flight time of roughly an hour and a half; private jet charter into New Chitose is equally easily arranged. Upon arrival, your FFGR chauffeur greets you at the gate — white gloves, a quiet bow — and the Lexus LM or Toyota Alphard makes the forty-minute drive north into the city along the Hokkaidō Expressway. In winter the car rides on studless snow tyres with chains carried as a matter of course, and the cabin is warm long before you reach it. The city arrives gently.

The Snow Festival transforms Ōdōri Park each February into an avenue of carved ice and light, best seen at dusk before dinner at one of the sushi or French kitchens that have made Sapporo a gastronomic destination in its own right. Spring arrives late and all at once: the cherry trees of Maruyama Park bloom in early May, when the rest of Japan has long since moved on. Mount Moiwa's ropeway offers the night view; the Nikka distillery at Yoichi makes an easy chauffeured excursion west along the coast. Summer brings the lavender fields of Furano, two hours away. Sapporo rewards the unhurried; we simply keep the engine warm.