Yamanaka Onsen Shirasagiyu Tawaraya

It was a lovely hotel. The village was so enjoyable and walkable. We loved the onsen!! Public onsen in the hotel so it was a little busy in the am but very quiet in the evening.

Our one night stay at Shirasagiyu Tawaraya was wonderful! We requested pick up and drop off at the station and this is pretty much necessary unless you take a taxi. The driver was very nice and found a tiny pin that came off my backpack without me even knowing it was missing. This is the type of attention to detail that is fantastic about Japan! The gentleman who talked us through check in and gave us info on meals, baths and so on was helpful, kind, and also funny. We LOVED our room and amenities. We got one of the newer rooms with access to a lounge with coffee, tea, soda, water, juice, and some alcohol. There was additional space to relax and take in the river and forest view. And it had a message chair. We used that a lot and only saw one other person enter the lounge to get a drink during our time there. Our room had a partial outdoor bath and it was wonderful. We also reserved and paid an additional fee for a 45 minute bath that had an indoor and outdoor. So glad we did this! The ryokan is on the river and we spent some time walking the trail. It was beautiful but there was remaining snow and quite a bit of water so had to be careful We did not find any open shops so decided to just focus our time relaxing in the baths and massage chair. If we would have spent a second night we would have looked harder for some local shopping areas and restaurants. We had dinner and breakfast at the inn. It was very good and the staff was fabulous. We enjoyed our relaxing stay!

Yamanaka is a beautiful hot spring town with lots of shops and is great for walking. The Tawaraya Hotel is clean, comfortable and has great public baths to benefit from the spring water.