Oku Tade Ka Onsen Shibu ･ Tatsuno Kan

Shibu Tatsunokan is a single inn tucked in the forest of Oku Tateshina, built around three separate baths reached by changing clothes between them. The indoor bath is the only one with a washing area; the outdoor bath opens onto a birch forest with Mt. Tateshina behind it and closes for the winter; and the third, known as Shingen's medicinal bath, is filled by spring water that pours straight from the spout and turns the tub a cloudy blue white. The source itself is cold and sharply acidic, so bathers alternate between a heated tub and a separate cool one rather than soaking long in either, and a short soak is the rule: the water is strong enough that coins left in it darken. A small cup of it is drinkable before a meal, too. The inn has stood in these mountains for around a century. Local lore traces the spring's discovery to a Shinto myth, and by the Sengoku era, the story goes that the warlord Takeda Shingen sent wounded retainers and warhorses here in secret to recover, which is how the medicinal bath got its name. The painter Higashiyama Kaii stayed at the inn while working on one of his well-known paintings, and the same birch forest still frames the dining room and guest rooms today.