This is an old-school hotel near a popular and important temple located in the mountains separating Osaka and Nara. The single indoor bath has a very clean and austere feeling. Outside there are two baths. A bigger rock-lined hot bath filled with a pottery bowl basin and a cold (straight spring water) tanuki-shaped tub. This spring water, especially in the unheated spring tub, has an American hotel pool freshness to it—if you can understand what I mean by that. It might have just been the crisp winter afternoon when I visited. While the spring water is clean and has a squeaky feeling on the skin, it's not very noticeable. Come here for the old-school Japanese hotel aesthetics.

This is an interesting place, but at ¥1,500, it is a bit pricey for what you get—even if you factor in the excellent bayu shampoo, conditioner, and body soap at the showers. The hours of operation for day use also end way too early to make it worthwhile for hikers to complete a walk here. I walked up to this place, took a bath, put my dirty clothes back on, walked down the hill, and found another sento to visit. It was a fun route but not one I can expect others to do.

Also, make sure to check the hotel webpage as on some days, day-use is not allowed because the entire hotel is booked out for school trips.

On another note, when you get to the entrance to the baths, there is a step up but no sign for where to put your shoes! So you need to divine that you are supposed to take your shoes off before stepping up into the entrance. There are no shoe lockers here either; just leave your shoes in front of the step.