Fujitani Yoshihide (流しの), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

山中温泉 is a hot spring town on the Daishoji River in Kaga, discovered some 1,300 years ago and, by local legend, found when the feudal lord Hasebe Nobitsura saw a white heron healing its foot in the stream — digging at the spot turned up both a small Yakushi Nyorai statue and the spring itself, and Nobitsura built the first twelve inns. Matsuo Basho stayed here on 27 July 1694 during the journey recorded in Oku no Hosomichi and ranked its water among Japan's three finest, alongside Arima and Kusatsu; the communal bathhouse Kiku no Yu takes its name from his poem on the town. The Daishoji River cuts the Kakusenkei gorge through the town centre — its riverside walk and bridges are catalogued separately — and the streets around Kiku no Yu (Honmachi, Yunodemachi) keep the ryokan-town shape that grew up around Nobitsura's original twelve inns. Yamanaka-za, a performance hall attached to the women's bathhouse, stages the town's traditional geisha and dialect programme on weekends and holidays.

Best season

Year-round

Crowd level

Moderate

Admission

Free to walk — it is a town. The communal bathhouse Kiku no Yu (総湯 菊の湯), at the centre, charges its own admission: revised 1 May 2025 to ¥500 adult (age 12+), ¥150 age 6-11, ¥70 age 3-5.

Website

yamanaka-spa.or.jp

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