Short trip to Ikaho and Tomioka No.1 – Ikaho Onsen

I’ll report about it in two parts.

After a 12km run in the morning, I left my home in Kawasaki just after noon.

By the way, to go to Ikaho Shibukawa, I pass through Tokyo and use the Kanetsu Expressway.

I really hate this Kan-etsu road. In the first place, there is no connection from the highway other than the outer ring road. It’s a real pain to have to go through Kanpachi from the west side.

Moreover, due to the blockage of Metropolitan Expressway Route 3 caused by a fire that broke out the day before the event, traffic congestion on the main roads in Tokyo that would have connected to Route 3 was terrible, and there was also an accident at the Iogi Tunnel, so Kanpachi was almost a parking lot.

In the end, it took almost two hours to arrive at Kanetsu.

However, it was smooth from Kan-etsu and it took only one hour from Nerima to Shibukawa. The weather that was worried about was no problem at all. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived at the inn.

It is this Ryokan that will take care of you this time. It is said that it is quite a high-class inn.

伊香保温泉 – 千明仁泉亭

The name of the inn is « Chigira Jinsenten ». A very atmospheric ryokan. The logo here is wonderful.

The food is not bad.

Well, Ikaho Onsen is the first visit, first of all, when it comes to the impression of hot water, « it was very lukewarm », anyway, I do not feel warmed up. This was very disappointing.

However, the atmosphere of the hot spring resort is very nice. After all, the charm is this stone staircase street.

These stone steps are quite steep. It was a little hard on my legs because I had run 12km the day before (laugh).

Incidentally, Ikaho Onsen is « the first hot spring city plan in Japan ».

Ikaho Onsen was the first place that started preparing and providing Yukata and Tenugui (hand towel) at inns, which is now a common practice for tourism mediation using hot springs as a selling point.

Speaking of tenugui (hand towels), here in Ikaho, they are collaborating with students from the design department of a local women’s university to create a project called « Tenugui Art », and there were very stylish and cute tenugui-style streamers displayed all over the hot spring resort.

I wonder if this is where the classic souvenirs such as onsen manjyu originated?

In that sense, this place might be the holy land of hot springs.

If it is, the lukewarmness of the hot water may be more and more regrettable.

There was an open-air bath with a very good atmosphere at the further end of the stone staircase street, but I did not enter after all because it was also lukewarm.