Sekizenkan

A 1691 bathhouse inn, a 1930 bathhall and a modern tower on one hillside — pick your building carefully, and stay the night for Genroku-no-yu without the day crowds

Sekizenkan is really three inns joined by corridors and a tunnel. The Honkan, which the inn says dates from 1691 and is Japan's oldest surviving wooden onsen inn, is a prefectural Important Cultural Property; the 1936 Sanso, known for its latticed shoji, is a nationally registered cultural property; and Kashotei is a modern building on higher ground behind them. Japanese bloggers keep reaching for Spirited Away when they describe it, and everyone raves about Genroku-no-yu, a 1930 bathhall with arched windows and five sunken tubs where the water wells up from the bottom. The spring itself — 67°C at the source, drinkable, and used without recirculation, heating or added water, according to one blogger — earns its highest mark: 4.70 for baths on a major Japanese booking site, where Kashotei and the Sanso average 4.57 across 148 reviews. The Honkan scores 4.54 on another site and is astonishing value: bloggers paid roughly ¥10,000–12,000 per person with two meals between 2021 and 2025. The trade-off is an old wooden building — shared toilets, footsteps and voices through the floors, cold corridors in winter. In Kashotei, reviewers love the in-room onsen baths but complain that dinner can arrive cold and pre-plated, and recent reviews mention hair on the floor, dusty vents and machinery noise at night.