Midoriya Ryokan Kichiemon

“One my favourite stays in Japan!”

One of the best stays I’ve had! - The hosts are extremely friendly and helpful 🙇‍♂️ - The onsens are beautiful and very private 🤩 - The food is incredible 😋 (some of the best I had during my whole stay in Japan) - The Ryokan is gorgeously designed 👨‍🎨 Wonderful all round.

“Magical experience - cannot rate highly eno”

The most wonderful place I have ever stayed in years of travel. The garden is magnificent- designed by a very famous Japanese architect. The onsens are beautiful- private with an easy reservation system. The food is also simply superb. We will certainly be back !

“Great breakfast, quiet location, and amazing onsens!”

Loved the variety of food for breakfast! Best breakfast in Japan so far! Friendly and helpful staff. It’s nice to have 3 different private baths to choose from! Wifi works great. Lots of choices of free tea. I enjoyed using their lavender face wash!

“The very best of Japanese hospitality in a magical spa town an hour's drive from Nagano”

It was virtually by sticking a pin in the map that I discovered this glorious place for my daughter and me to spend three days of relaxation before we hit Tokyo. And what a discovery that turned out to be! Bessho Onsen is an utterly adorable little spa town on the edge of a quite substantial fore… more

It was virtually by sticking a pin in the map that I discovered this glorious place for my daughter and me to spend three days of relaxation before we hit Tokyo. And what a discovery that turned out to be! Bessho Onsen is an utterly adorable little spa town on the edge of a quite substantial forest of native cedar and maple of the sort the form the umistakable backdrop to Japanese landscapes. In its own right, the town is a veritable treasure trove of historic Buddhist landmarks - temples, pagodas and the like - that remain very much in their original, unreconstructed state. The "babbling brook" setting is a photographer's dream. Well worth a detour for anyone. With its abundance of hot spring water, the town also plays host to a good many beautiful onsen establishments covering a range of price points right up to the stratospheric. Midoriya sits at the high - but by no means highest - end of that range. Though I can't speak with authority about its competition, I imagine it must be steep: for the traveller, everything that Japan lays on is beautiful! One possibly singular advantage is that the place is tattoo friendly, in part because the onsens are private but also because the management are a pretty chilled team :-) Midoriya is a new entrant having made its grand opening in August 2023; the entire facility has a wonderfully fresh feel to it. The rooms are very comfortably appointed albeit, for international travellers with vast amounts of luggage, a little on the small side. (The target market is, I would imagine, local weekend breakers with overnight bags better matched to the room sizes.) Whatever the case, the rooms afford guests the unique pleasure of sleeping with the window open (insect screened, of course) and allowing the chatter of the garden waterfall lull them to sleep. Expensive construction materials have been chosen everywhere, not least in the private spa rooms; and the attention to the detailed requirements of fussy guests is impressive. The spa plumbing is faultless. Three things stand out amidst a long list of Midoriya wonders: the breathtakingly beautiful landscaping - the designer a Chelsea Flower Show laureate no less - in the true Japanese tradition of sculptural cedars, cascading maples and subtle water features. Just to die for. Then the cuisine, over which the resident chef exudes justifiable pride. His breakfasts, comprising little bowls of intense flavours, nothing ever repeated, are world standard. The soba ramen he rustled up for us notwithstanding our late initial arrival after the kitchen "had closed", with so many delicately complementary ingredients I lost count, is a dish I'll never forget. And his total willingness to accommodate vegan preferences was beyond considerate. The chef devotes his energies to the sort of complicated, sophisticated cuisine for which Japan has become legendary and the rewards are very special. And last but not least is the charm that the people who run Midoriya sprinkle over the entire experience. Charm costs nothing; but it is priceless. I wish them every success in their venture.

less