Ryokan in Shibu Onsen

The four reviewed Shibu Onsen inns sit in the middle of the narrow hot-spring town, about 10 minutes by bus (or, for some, the inn's shuttle) from Yudanaka Station, and all four give guests a key to Shibu's nine public bathhouses. Kanaguya and Shibu Onsen Kokuya stand across from each other on the hot-spring street and are old wooden houses on their own springs: Kanaguya has been an inn since 1758, and Kokuya began in the early Edo period as a grain merchant's house. Both describe their baths as 100% free-flowing, and both share the same drawbacks: stairs everywhere and buildings unsuited to anyone with limited mobility. Sakaeya, one lane off the main street, is different: it began in 1927 as a shop selling geta, was rebuilt in 1996 and is now a modern, very clean 23-room house. Tamakyu stands on a narrow lane right next to Take-no-yu, the fourth of the nine public baths (bus stop Shibu Wagōbashi): a family-run Showa-era wooden house with eight tatami rooms, whose two small indoor baths take Shibu Onsen water piped from three sources in the grounds of Onsenji temple, 100% free-flowing with no added water or heat; the old building has steep stairs and thin walls.

Kanaguya (classic) is for those who come for the architecture: its four-storey 1936 wooden building, Saigetsu-ro, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property that crowds photograph when it is lit up at night, a free building tour runs at 17:30, and eight baths from four springs include a rooftop open-air bath and five free private baths that need no booking. Book a Type A room to sleep in the 1936 building; sound carries through the wooden rooms, the lift serves only some floors, the private baths are often taken at busy times, and opinions on dinner are split. Shibu Onsen Kokuya (classic) is for those who want to bathe without strangers: all eight baths are private and free, booked in 45-minute slots, including a room of six hinoki tubs with one spring each, and ten rooms add their own free-flowing open-air bath. It has no lift, its corridors are a maze, some water arrives too hot to enter without adding cold water, and rooms score lowest on one booking site. Shibu Onsen Shunran no Yado Sakaeya (classic) is for those who come for the food and the service: its young staff twice won Ryokan Koshien, the national inn-staff contest, one person looks after you from check-in to breakfast, and Japanese guests rate its creative Shinshu kaiseki 4.9 for dinner. The baths are its weak side: the indoor tubs are part-recirculated, only the two suites have a bath of their own, the private sauna baths cost extra, and the car park is reached up narrow one-way lanes. Shibu Onsen Tamakyu Ryokan (value), the only value-tier inn of the four, is for those who come to eat well for less: the family's third generation cooks a Japanese-Western dinner served one dish at a time — Nozawana oyaki steamed in a bamboo basket, eel under Matsushiro yam, corn cream stew under pastry, wagyu steak — that Japanese guests rate 5.0 on Jalan, as they do the home-made breakfast, and two-meal rates run about ¥16,500–21,450 per person for two sharing; book the private-dining plan early, as only four groups a day get one. No room has its own bath, the cheaper 8–10-mat rooms have no toilet, there is no open-air or private bath, the two indoor baths run very hot and one is small, every room is tatami with futons, and parking is limited and reached along a lane one car wide.