Fukuzumiro

A Meiji-era wooden inn where Soseki and Kawabata stayed — in-room kaiseki, a giant round pine bath, no tattoo rules, and shared toilets down the corridor

Fukuzumiro opened in Tonosawa in 1890 and, after a 1910 flood swept away its first building, moved into an even older wooden inn 200 metres downstream. Today it is a rambling three-storey timber building of 17 rooms, each laid out differently, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property and listed among the 20th-century heritage sites of Hakone's great wooden inns. Its guest list includes Fukuzawa Yukichi, Natsume Soseki, Shimazaki Toson and Yasunari Kawabata, who liked Kiri-san because it is out of earshot of the river. Japanese reviewers are devoted: it shows 5.00 across 70 reviews on one major booking site. They love the in-room kaiseki, the unhurried staff, the Omaru-buro — a round tub about two metres across carved from red pine — and the free private baths you sign up for on arrival. Know the trade-offs of a museum-piece inn: only one room has its own bath and toilet, the shared toilets are not separated by gender, there is no lift and the stairs are steep, winter draughts make it cold, the river can be loud, and a few guests mention insects or an ageing feel. Unusually for Japan, the inn states it has no restrictions on tattoos. Weekday prices run from about ¥31,000 to ¥42,000 per person with dinner and breakfast.