Yamaguchi Hagi City
An inn with a bathing district that recreates Hagi's castle town, where you can enjoy 14 types of bath hopping and a cold plunge bath filled with natural spring water
A hot spring inn built on a hill overlooking the townscape of Hagi, near the World Heritage site of Shokasonjuku. In the bathing district Yuno-maru, which recreates the atmosphere of Hagi's castle town, the two corridor-style bathhouses, Tsubaki no Yu and Momiji no Yu, let guests tour 14 bath styles in total, seven for each gender. With creatively designed baths such as the earthen-wall open-air bath, the castle-wall open-air bath, Tachi no Ma for standing bathing, and Ashi no Ma where you can walk up to your ankles, the layout elevates hot spring bathing into a leisure experience of bath hopping. From the corridor centered around the garden, you can feel the changing seasons.
This bath uses heated calcium-sodium chloride spring water from the facility's own source, drawn from 2,350 m underground. Though colorless and clear, it is characterized by a rich, full-bodied water quality with a distinct salty taste. If the weather is clear, you can enjoy the atmosphere of Hagi's castle town with your whole body while surrounded by a star-filled sky and the sound of trees rustling in the wind.
A diverse lineup of baths arranged in a corridor around a garden, offering 14 bath styles in total, seven for each gender. Tachi no Ma, with a water depth of 120 cm, is a rare design that lets you bathe standing up to your shoulders, promoting blood circulation. In Ashi no Ma, where the water reaches up to your ankles, you can bathe while walking, much like a foot massage. From Nezukuri no Ma to Fushi no Ma and other baths, this luxurious bathing district gathers a variety of bathing experiences into one facility.
A medium-low temperature, high-humidity sauna where automatic löyly is activated at 00 and 30 minutes past every hour. A convection-style electric stove is installed, and the rising steam steadily boosts the humidity to encourage deep sweating. A quiet, TV-free space with classical music playing softly in the background.
A post-sauna cold plunge bath in a tsubo-yu tub, with unheated natural spring water constantly flowing through it. Although the temperature is relatively mild at around 28 to 29°C, the smooth feel unique to the chloride spring creates an exceptional sensation that cannot be experienced elsewhere. When you settle into the one-person tsubo-yu, the experience is not about tightening the skin with coldness, but about being gently enveloped by the softness of the spring water as you cool down in a uniquely soothing way.
A tsubo-yu-style cold plunge bath with continuously flowing tap water, also equipped with a bubble feature. It provides a firmer cooling sensation than the natural spring water cold plunge bath, helping to refresh and tone the body, while still remaining comfortable enough for a longer stay. After the sauna, you can first shed heat in this cold plunge bath, then continue with a second stage of cooling by relaxing in the natural spring water cold plunge bath.
Irregular Holidays
Yamaguchi
A superb beauty-enhancing open-air bath overlooking the river, and a scenic sauna soothed by the beauty of the garden
Yamaguchi
A spectacular open-air hot spring with the sound of the Seto Inland Sea waves, and blissful sauna surrounded by the sea breeze
Yamaguchi
A new large bath featuring the sulfur spring of one of the Three Great Baths of Bōchō, two types of sauna, and a source water bath
JAPAN'S FINEST ONSEN & SAUNA
The Finest Onsen & Sauna in Japan
61 SELECTIONS
Most of what we surveyed never even made it onto this site. This book is a further cut from what did. Our editor bathed in every onsen and sauna in it, and wrote only what they confirmed on the ground.
