Keyaki Sanso

Keyaki Sanso is a small hot-spring inn in Norikura Kogen, surrounded by birch woods, with Mount Norikura visible on clear days. The bathing area has two rotenburo, one larger and one smaller, plus an indoor bath built from a single trunk of Kiso cypress. The water, drawn from the Yugawa (湯川) spring, is milky white with a faint sulfur smell. Guests often note the indoor bath runs hot while the outdoor tubs stay noticeably cooler, so people tend to go back and forth between them rather than settle into one. The main building began as a farmhouse from the Ansei era (安政), late in the Edo period, moved here from snowy Itoigawa in Niigata and rebuilt as the inn's honkan (本館). Bathing is separate for men and women, with matching layouts on both sides.