Japanese tourists visit rapeseed fields

A Japanese holiday company is offering tourists trips to see Britain's dazzling rapeseed fields.

Tours were launched after guides noticed coach tour passengers flocking to the windows to photograph the bright yellow fields, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Visitors are allowed to walk along the crop during the trips to East Lodge Farm on the Gloucestershire-Worcestershire border.

Tourist Junko Daimon, 43, said: "We normally stop at castles and old towns and villages. This is the only field we have stopped at and it is a nice change. It has been very popular - a beautiful sight."

The Miki Travel tours are already proving popular. The target number of 20 farm visits this summer will be exceeded and 70 are planned for next year.

Charlie Beldam, who runs the rapeseed operation at East Lodge, said: "We've always had English pastures green and there is no denying that rapeseed is very vibrant and eye-catching.

"People here in England have probably got used to seeing the crop but for Japanese people it's something that's very different and they consider the flowers to be very beautiful."

Each coach load, which usually has 49 tourists on board, is charged £49 by the farm. After a walk in the fields, the visitors are given a tour of the farm's press and bottling site.