Hida Takayama Onsen Hoshokaku

A five-storey hilltop inn above Takayama's old town, loved for warm, old-school service and huge Hida-beef dinners — but only the shared outdoor rock baths use (heated, recirculated) hot-spring water, and the in-room open-air baths are not onsen

Hoshokaku stands on the hill of Shiroyama, the site of Takayama Castle, looking over the rooftops of the old town that lies three minutes below — down a slope steep enough that a 2022 blogger arrived breathless. Inside, tatami corridors run through the whole building, so you walk barefoot or in the tabi socks left in your room, under a sign brushed by Mozumi Osami, the calligrapher who wrote 'Reiwa'. Japanese guests rate it 4.6 across 1,599 reviews on one major site (service 4.7) and 4.51 across 910 on another. What they praise most is the service — valet parking, escorts to the room, sweets from a local confectioner, celebration rice and wine for birthdays, an origami crane on the futon — and the food: dinners built around Hida beef (180g of shabu-shabu per person on one plan, 250g on another) that bloggers from 2022 to 2024 and reviewers in 2026 found almost too big to finish, and a set breakfast with Hida-beef hoba miso. Know before you book: the inn says only the outdoor rock baths in the shared bathhouse use Takayama's hot spring, heated and recirculated; the indoor baths, the women's rooftop spa and the open-air baths in the eleven fifth-floor rooms are not onsen. The building is dated, and 2026 reviewers mention dim room lighting, heating they couldn't adjust, a thin futon, a narrow driveway to the car park and some rooms that still allow smoking. Two-meal plans cost about ¥18,000–30,000 per person in standard rooms and over ¥30,000 in rooms with an open-air bath.