Tsurunoyu Onsen

Tsurunoyu is the oldest of the Nyuto inns. Its records of ordinary paying guests go back to the Genroku era around 1700, and the thatched honjin once housed the guards of Satake Yoshitaka, second lord of Akita, when he came to bathe in 1638. The name comes from a hunter named Kansuke, who is said to have watched a wounded crane heal itself in the spring. Four springs with different chemistry rise within 50 metres of each other, and the inn calls them Shiroyu, Kuroyu, Naka no Yu and Taki no Yu.

The big outdoor pool is mixed, and the inn's English page says towels can't go into any of the baths. Day visitors pay ¥700 from 10:00 to 15:00. Day bathing stops on Mondays for cleaning, or on the nearest weekday when Monday is a holiday.

Building 2 is the old toji wing. Its six-mat rooms share toilets, guests eat both meals in the honjin dining hall, and at ¥11,700 a person it's the cheapest way in. Rooms in the honjin and the Shin-honjin and Higashi-honjin wings take dinner in the room, and a few have their own irori. Dinner centres on the inn's yam hotpot in its own miso, with char salted and grilled by the hearth.

Take the Ugo Kotsu Nyuto line bus from Tazawako Station and phone the inn with your bus time, and its car meets you at the Alpa Komakusa stop. The bus runs about once an hour. The annex Yamanoyado stands a kilometre away in the beech wood and draws the same water, and every room there has its own bath and toilet.