Ikaho Onsen Fukuichi

A big, friendly inn at the very top of Ikaho's stone steps, with its own door onto the steps and both of Ikaho's springs in the large baths — but the water is heated, partly recirculated and disinfected, the one free-flowing private bath has been shut since a June 2026 earthquake, and dinner divides opinion

Fukuichi claims 440 years in business: the Fukuda family that runs it settled in Ikaho around 1582 and was among the 14 families holding the town's hot-spring rights by 1629, and Yokoyama Taikan, Saitō Mokichi and Kawabata Yasunari stayed at the prewar inn. Today it's an 83-room complex — the Manyōkan (1983), the Senjukan (rebuilt 1991) and the Western-style Kotohogi annex — climbing the hillside so that a door on the Senjukan's 19th floor opens onto the top of the stone steps. The draw is that the large baths offer both of Ikaho's springs, the brown 'golden' Kogane-no-yu and the clear 'silver' Shirogane-no-yu, with towels, a shampoo bar and skincare laid on, plus free drinks and sweets in the lobby. Japanese guests rate it 4.2 across 1,502 reviews on one major site (baths 4.5) and 4.29 across 1,732 on another. Travelogues from 2023 to 2025 and recent reviewers praise the location, warm staff (surprise celebration sake and red rice), roomy 12.5-tatami rooms with mountain views and the breakfast buffet's seafood bowls. The catches: the inn's own bath data shows the large baths heated, partly recirculated and disinfected; the only free-flowing private bath, Fuwari, has been closed since a June 2026 earthquake; and the Forest Suites' garden baths aren't onsen. The building is a maze, Senjukan rooms are a long walk from the baths, and 2026 reviews mention check-in waits of up to 30 minutes, dusty or worn rooms in older wings and disappointing dinners (food unlike the photos, cold rice, slow pacing); a 2023 travelogue called both meals bad. Two-meal stays run about ¥19,000–30,000 per person, and Forest Suites from about ¥39,600.