Sanso Nagisa

The food was delicious, and the staff were wonderfully kind. We spent two nights here in a very traditional room. We reserved the private bath and had it to ourselves for our whole stay. Highly recommend it.

The staff were kind, attentive, and polite throughout our stay. At checkout they suggested we visit Hyuga Yakushi after Mt. Oyama, so we stopped there on the way down. It's said to be one of Japan's three great Yakushi temples, and it was beautiful, with a real feeling of stepping back into the Kamakura period. We'd planned to take the cable car up and use the stairs coming down, but we were in casual clothes and both had hurt our ankles playing sports. After I mentioned our plan to climb Mt. Oyama, the staff explained the mountain and advised us to walk up and take the cable car back. We followed that advice and made it safely to the lower shrine on time. We hadn't expected so many stairs. I hadn't known much about the mountain and had imagined it would be like the inner shrine at Konpira. Mt. Oyama is known for tofu, and dinner was a wonderful spread of tofu dishes. Breakfast was even more elaborate, and both meals were delicious. The old main hall ceiling reminded me of a long-established restaurant. I heard that before COVID-19 the inn hosted many more guests, but when meals could no longer be served in the main hall, they moved dining into the guest rooms and didn't greatly increase guest numbers afterward. That seems fine now. We stayed at Sanso Nagisa the night before heading to Mt. Oyama. It's an inn with spring water baths and more than 400 years of history. I hadn't checked the price when booking, but it was 32,000 yen for two people on a weekday. Despite its long history, the building didn't feel particularly old, perhaps because of renovations. Our Japanese-style room had an old-fashioned layout but was very clean. There seemed to be separate men's and women's baths, but as only two groups were staying that day, we got both baths and the whole room area to ourselves and could relax. The day before, we'd gone to Matsuda's Wintersweet Festival, then Nakazawa Sake Brewery, known for "Matsumidori" sake, and Watanabe Shoten in Ninomiya, known for hand-peeled peanuts. Thank you for a really lovely stay.

The tofu-based meals may suit women and older guests especially well. The rooms were clean, perhaps thanks to renovations, though the bath is more like one in a mountain lodge and can feel a bit sticky. It uses spring water, but don't expect a typical hot spring experience. Parking is on a narrow slope, so I'd avoid bringing a large car. There isn't much in the way of tourist attractions nearby.

There are free washing machines and a rack for drying clothes. No vending machines, though, so you'll need to walk up to the paid parking lot above the inn. We were here with a baseball training camp. The bath fits up to six people, so a queue could form when there are lots of guests.