- Source temperature
- 98°C
- Bathing temperature
- 42°C
- Bathing
- Indoor
Kin no Yu — the Golden Bath — is the municipal bathhouse at the heart of Arima Onsen, a hot-spring quarter tucked into the mountains behind Kobe. Its water, kinsen, is heavily mineralised with iron and salt and oxidises to a deep ochre once drawn.
Balnevia view
Why visit
Arima is a rarity: a hot spring with no volcano beneath it, fed instead by ancient seawater forced up along a deep fault. The contrast between the opaque golden bath here and the clear, carbonated ginsen silver water nearby is the reason to come.
Recommendations
Hotels nearby
Explore places to stay near Kin no Yu, Arima Onsen.
The water
Thermal water
- Source
- Kinsen (golden spring)
- Mineralisation
- Iron-rich sodium chloride, strongly saline
- Character
- Opaque ochre water, one of Japan's most heavily mineralised springs
History
Arima appears in the eighth-century Nihon Shoki and is traditionally counted among Japan's three oldest hot springs. It was patronised by emperors and, in the sixteenth century, rebuilt under the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whose tea gatherings here are still commemorated.
Practical information
Kin no Yu is a simple public bathhouse rather than a resort: bring a towel or buy one at the counter. A free foot bath sits outside the entrance, and the companion Gin no Yu bathhouse is a few minutes away on foot.
Getting there
Around thirty minutes by Kobe Electric Railway or bus from central Kobe, and roughly an hour from Osaka.
Location
Related places
More thermal baths in Japan
Hakone/Japan
Hakone Yumoto Onsen
The oldest onsen district in Hakone, where ryokan baths look onto the Sukumo river valley.
Bathing temperature 41°C
Beppu/Japan
Takegawara Onsen
Beppu's 1879 bathhouse, known for its hot sand baths.
Bathing temperature 43°C
Matsuyama/Japan
Dōgo Onsen Honkan
One of Japan's oldest hot springs, in a wooden bathhouse of 1894.
Bathing temperature 42°C