Yoshidaya

Yoshidaya is a small wooden ryokan in Senami Onsen with just 15 rooms, each decorated differently in a traditional Japanese style. There's an indoor bath and a rotenburo that looks onto the garden and the wooded hill behind the inn: camellias bloom there from late winter into spring, and on clear nights the sky fills with stars. Two more baths, one open-air and one indoor, kashikiri (貸切風呂) style, are left unlocked and free to use anytime during your stay, no reservation needed. The spring water itself is faintly salty, plain and warming. A few of the suites have their own semi-open-air tub fed straight from the source, though the plainer bath-equipped rooms run on ordinary tap water instead. Built in 1907, the ryokan still occupies its original wooden three-story building and keeps a quiet, old-fashioned feel, with no elevator, just staircases with handrails throughout. Families are welcome, with baby items available to borrow, and the inn also opens its baths to day-use visitors.