Takamiyabettei Kuon

Takamiyabettei Kuon (高見屋別邸久遠) is a 57-room ryokan in Atsumi Onsen (あつみ温泉), on the Yamagata coast. There are two large bathhouses, Sansui (山水) and Rijin (離塵), that alternate between men's and women's from day to day, so a two-night stay lets you try both: Sansui is stone-built with a garden view and a connected half-open-air bath, while Rijin is warm and wood-built, with three one-person open-air tubs attached, each with a different material and water temperature. Add a low-temperature dry sauna and two reservable private baths, one of them barrier-free apart from a step into the tub, plus a top-floor suite with its own open-air tub in the room. All of it runs straight from the spring rather than recirculated, and the water itself is soft and faintly slick on the skin, with a warming effect that lingers after you get out. Atsumi Onsen has drawn visitors for well over a thousand years, among them poets like Matsuo Basho (松尾芭蕉) and Yosano Akiko (与謝野晶子), who wrote of it in verse. Reviewers describe a quiet, incense-scented lobby in a traditional Japanese style; the ryokan is part of the Takamiya (高見屋) group of inns found across Yamagata.