Miwa Yugawara

About Miwa Yugawara

Miwa Yugawara opened in the winter of 2019, up a short slope from the Risōkyō bus stop. From the road it's a plain wall with no windows; walk through and the whole building opens onto the forest and the line of the mountains.

There's no big shared bath. Instead every room has its own open-air tub, filled with flowing Yugawara onsen water. The ten Sansui twins on the upper floors have oval tubs facing the ridge, the six Kodachi twins on the ground floor have round white tubs under the trees, and the one Miwa Suite, 80 square metres on the corner of the top floor, has a tub of glazed tiles made by the potters Yasuhisa and Keiko Gunji.

Dinner is a ten-course meal of Japanese cooking with Italian ingredients, made with local fish and Uonuma Koshihikari rice, and served in the top-floor restaurant. You can eat it with chopsticks. Breakfast is a Japanese set. After dinner, the eight-seat bar looks out over the forest from 20:00 to 23:00, with alcohol-free drinks too.

From Yugawara Station it's about 10 minutes by taxi, around ¥1,300 to ¥1,400, or take a bus toward Oku-Yugawara or Fudō Falls to Risōkyō. If you drive, come up the road past the Risōkyō bus stop. Satnavs sometimes send cars up lanes that are too narrow, and there's no way in from the Orange Line. Parking in front is free; tell them when you book.