Shitimi Kouyoukan

Shitimi Kouyoukan is a small ryokan with five guest rooms, standing alone in the Matsukawa valley in northern Nagano's Shinshu Takayama hot spring area. The spring water is unheated and undiluted, running straight from the source: true kakenagashi (掛け流し). It's a milky sulfur water that shifts between emerald green, white, and blue depending on the weather. The men's bathing area has an indoor bath, an open-air bath, and a blended bath where a cooler and a hotter spring are mixed together, turning the water charcoal black with mineral flecks. The women's side has an indoor bath, an open-air bath, and a cave bath: the ryokan's founder hand-dug a tunnel through the mountain so guests wouldn't have to walk far to the outdoor bath in the winter cold. The two sides swap nightly. The inn has been run as a single building for about fifty years, with nothing around it but mountains and the sound of the river.