Gero Onsen Sasara

Gero's self-styled 'art inn' on the hill: antique-crammed lobbies, 20 of 44 rooms with their own open-air onsen, in-room Hida-beef dinners and a top-floor bath over the town lights — but breakfast underwhelms, the Moriyama wing is a long walk from the baths, and renovation noise runs until the end of 2026

Sasara opened in 1986 on a rise across the Hida River from Gero's onsen town, and calls itself an 'art inn': two lobbies hung with paintings and stained glass, an indoor waterfall and stream, a jazz bar, and a free-standing Yurari annex built by Hida temple carpenters from old timber the owner spent eight years collecting. Its 44 rooms are split between the newer eight-storey Sasara-kan, the older Moriyama-kan reached by an underground passage, and Yurari; 20 have their own open-air bath of hinoki, ceramic, rock or a hollowed log. The other draws are dinner served in your room or a private dining room — Hida beef in every plan, and Ryū no Hitomi rice cooked in a clay pot — and the top-floor bath looking over the town at night. Japanese guests rate it 4.5 across 3,118 reviews on one leading site (dinner, rooms, baths and service all 4.5) and 4.15 across 1,131 on another. Bloggers who stayed in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2026, and most 2026 reviewers, praise the silky water, the attentive room staff, the free station taxi and the quirky antique décor. The recurring complaint is breakfast: a make-your-own soy-milk tofu, hoba miso and chawanmushi tray with no grilled fish that many 2026 reviewers found plain. Others in 2026 mention mould on a large-bath wall, hair left in a changing room, rushed or confused in-room service, a locked pay-per-item fridge and the long walk with stairs between the Moriyama wing and the baths. Two-meal rates run about ¥20,000–44,000 per person, and ¥56,000–80,000 in the two special suites.