Handpicked experience · Kyoto
Kyoto, Japan
The place opens at midday and shuts at ten, because it is built for people who have already walked all day — including a column of falling water aimed straight at the shoulders that carried the bag.
Indulge in a rejuvenating onsen experience at the Fu Fu No Yu Onsen in Kyoto.
Relieve your muscles and body of soreness with the hot springs therapeutic waters.
Be one with nature and enjoy a relaxing dip in the onsen's outdoor hot spring.
A facility timed for the end of a walking day rather than the start
Falling water aimed precisely where a day's sightseeing hurts
Two kinds of sauna and cold water to alternate between them
An outdoor pool as well as the indoor rooms
Close enough to the railhead that nobody has to plan the last leg
Open late enough to go after everything else has shut
Admission to an onsen in Arashiyama, a few minutes on foot from the Hankyu station at the end of the western sightseeing circuit. It was the first day-visit bathhouse in the district and it is built for a very specific customer: somebody who has been on their feet since morning and has one thing left to do before dinner.
Doors open at midday and close at ten in the evening, with last entry half an hour before. That is not how a facility behaves if it expects morning custom. It expects you to arrive worn out, which is exactly what happens to people who spend a day walking the bamboo grove, the temple gardens and the river path in sequence.
Among the indoor and open-air pools is a feature called utase-yu, which is worth knowing about in advance because it looks peculiar and is entirely deliberate. Water falls from height onto your back and shoulders in a heavy column — the traditional treatment for the stiffness that comes from carrying a bag and looking upward all day. You stand or kneel under it. It is not gentle, and it is the most useful thing in the building.
Alongside it are a silk bath, where the water is clouded with fine bubbles, a hot dry sauna, a mist sauna and a stone plunge pool for cooling between rounds. Alternating between the hot rooms and the cold water is the point rather than an option.
Wash and rinse completely at the seated showers before entering any pool. This is not an etiquette nicety; the bath is for soaking, and everyone is sharing the same water. Small towels come in with you and are kept out of the water, usually folded on the head. Long hair goes up. Nobody wears swimwear.
Bathing areas are separated by sex, so groups split at the entrance and meet afterwards. Sessions are as long as you want within opening hours; most people find an hour and a half is the natural length before the heat wins. Come before you eat rather than after, and drink water throughout — the combination of an afternoon of walking and an evening of hot water dehydrates people more than they expect.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
At the western edge of the city, in the district that ends the bamboo and temple route, and reachable on foot from its railway terminus.
From midday until ten at night, with the last admission half an hour before closing.
Because its custom arrives after a day of sightseeing rather than before one.
A heavy column of water falling from above onto the back and shoulders, used against stiffness.
Indoor and open-air pools, a bath clouded with fine bubbles, a dry sauna, a mist sauna and a cold stone plunge.
Yes, completely, at the seated showers; the pools are for soaking and the water is shared.
No. Bathing is done without clothing, and the areas are separated by sex.
Around ninety minutes tends to be the natural limit before the heat becomes tiring.