Takeo Onsen Trips & Tours

Takeo Onsen has been soothing tired limbs for over 1,300 years, though you'd hardly know it from the lack of crowds. The vermilion Romon Gate – designed in 1915 by the same architect behind Tokyo Station and constructed entirely without nails – declares your arrival in suitably dramatic fashion. Beyond it, the Motoyu bathhouse, welcoming bathers since 1876, is all high wooden ceilings and stone tubs that are virtually unchanged. The water here is alkaline and impossibly smooth, known locally as bijin-no-yu or “the beauty bath.” Alternate between the 'hot' and 'lukewarm' pools as the regulars do, then perhaps rent the marble-lined Tonosama-yu where samurai legend Miyamoto Musashi once soaked. A short walk through bamboo groves leads to a 3,000-year-old camphor tree at Takeo Shrine – pure Studio Ghibli territory.