- Bathing
- Indoor / Outdoor
- Established
- 1875
- Accommodation
- Hotel on site
Hōshi Onsen Chōjūkan stands alone in a forested valley in Minakami, Gunma. Its Hōshi no Yu bathhouse, built in 1895, is a wooden hall of arched beams where bathers sit on pebble-floored basins directly above the calcium-sodium sulphate spring.
Balnevia view
Why visit
It is one of the best-preserved mixed-bathing wooden bathhouses in Japan: no filtration, no additives, water entering the tubs at source temperature under lamplight.
The water
Thermal water
- Source
- Hōshi no Yu
- Mineralisation
- Calcium-sodium sulphate spring
- Character
- Water rises directly beneath the pebble-floored tubs of the 1895 bathhouse, unfiltered and undiluted.
History
The inn was founded in 1875 as a remote cure lodging on the old road over the Mikuni pass; the bathhouse of 1895 survives largely unaltered and is a designated cultural property of the region.
Practical information
Chōjūkan is a ryokan first — day bathing is possible in limited hours. Hōshi no Yu is traditionally mixed, with women-only periods each evening.
- Things to do nearby
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Getting there
From Jōmō-Kōgen station (Jōetsu Shinkansen), the inn is about an hour by bus and taxi via Sarugakyō; a shuttle runs for guests.
Location
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