Odakyu Hotel de Yama

This lakeside resort on Lake Ashinoko has its own hot-spring source, called Tsutsuji-no-yu (つつじの湯) after the azaleas in its garden. Local lore held that no spring could be found anywhere both Mt. Fuji and the lake are visible, so the hotel drilled its own well and proved it wrong. The water is clear, colorless, and smooth on the skin. It fills a glass-walled indoor bath with a jet tub, plus a separate open-air bath set among cypress trees, with a half-body soaking corner on both the men's and women's sides. The women's sauna is a gentle low-temperature mist room, the men's a dry sauna, and there is free natural drinking water at a cold-water corner after bathing. Built in 1948 on the former lakeside villa of Baron Iwasaki Koyata (岩﨑小彌太), Mitsubishi's fourth president, the hotel keeps a classic, old-world feel alongside gardens of azaleas and rhododendrons inherited from his time. A few room types have their own onsen bath, including the top-floor Premium Fourth, which looks out over the lake.