Zen-no-yu — Hotel in Kawadu

Stayed here three nights. Not disappointed by a single thing. ||First impression was that it is what an onsen/ryokan would look like if IKEA made them. This is, coming from a Swede, a compliment. It is straight forward, no fuss, quality interior design. For someone, like me, travelling with little children it is great to not have to worry about the kids messing up some 400yr old Buddha statue or a decorative pot of sand with incense. Instead, there are toys, a good child seat for dinner time, the owners kids to play with and great attitudes from staff towards (annoying) children. ||||The rooms are simple, good looking and clean with very comfortable sleeping mats and thick fluffy duvets. We had a balcony overlooking the mountains but I don't know for the other rooms. ||||The baths are very nice. A 49 degrees hotspring fills (men and women separated) indoor and outdoor pools. The treat is however the steam room - a dark, steam filled room where the entire floor is covered in pebbles that you lay on while relaxing and enjoying the heat. ||||Finally, the food. Oh, the food! Don't expect to understand what you're eating. There are no menus. Every evening a set menu of seven courses is served, all without explanation in any language I master. All that aside, the cooking is exquisite! Among the best I've ever had. Anywhere in the world. Wild boar sashimi, fresh wasabi, spectacular sea food, sublime deserts. All for the fashionable price of 2000yen. Breakfast is also worth experiencing. It is traditionally Japanese and as such very dinner like in its character. It offered me a first chance to taste fresh jelly fish, and some very sticky beans. at 1000yen it is also very much value for money.||It's worth noting that when we arrived in the afternoon we had made no reservation for dinner and a little confusion arose, the staff were however very accommodating and had a noodle soup dinner ready for the starving kids in no time.||||All in all, we visited several other onsen/ryokan twice the price (or more) to Zen no yu, but nothing was even close to what we experienced here.||And to think that they dare call...

My wife and me made here the base for a weekend hike along the waterfalls of the Kawatsu Gorge and up to the Amagi Mountain. This is a Japanese style hot spring guesthouse, with a modern touch. The guesthouse is set just next to a temple with a graveyard on the back and its entrance is right through the temple’s front courtyard. The guesthouse must have been recently renovated. The interior decor is modern and very simple, yet beautiful and essential. Tatami straw mats and wooden floor, no need for slippers. We were given a kind of Japanese style pajama instead of the usual “yakata” vest and introduced to a very beautiful room on the second floor, with a partial view over the hills. The room was very spacious, with new tatami floor and perfectly clean. It is provided with a sink, while shared toilets are on the corridor. Aircon and small fridge work perfectly.||The bathhouse at the ground floor is really nice, The bath is of natural thermal water. There is an indoor big tub, a smaller and slightly hotter wooden tub outdoors and a sauna room too. Three reclining chairs outside are just perfect for cooling down after the warm bath or the sauna and watching the sky. The guesthouse also offers a private bathing room for couples, or families. ||We had the simplest of the menus on offer for dinner. It was absolutely fantastic. A kind of modern Japanese cuisine, with some western dishes (delicious seafood chowder and cuts of roasted chicken breast with stirred peppers and eggplants), cooked very lightly in the Japanese style and an amazing kind of sorbet at the end made with local citrus fruits. A group of guests next to us were enjoying a steamed big red fish that looked gorgeous. ||The group of ladies who are running this guesthouse and the kitchen are doing a wonderful job. They are full of smiles, kind, welcoming and so efficient!||The only drawback of the guesthouse is that is located just on the main road, so the interference of the car and truck traffic on this exquisite environment is unavoidable.||Overall it was a most pleasant stay. I look forward of being back one day to enjoy...

When I decided to go to Izu Hanto I wanted to book an accommodation with good value but not too basic. So I searched the Japanese youth hostel list and discovered this quite unusual Hostel. I didn't expect it to be special, but for a hostel it really was! First of all it's located right next to a small temple. The main building with the onsen, the reception desk and the dining room is located in a very clean and minimalistic modern white Building (I loved the decoration with the door handles and the writings on cut-into-half flat natural stones) with a zen- like garden in the middle featuring white pebbles and a lot of moss, while the rooms are in the older but nicely renovated building. The rooms were really nice with views on the hills across the valley, tatami, futon and nice design elements like the free standing sink and the nice wall pattern. Very nice! Just to give you an idea: I have been to some very expensive ryokan which had worse rooms then this hostel for five times the price! So for the rooms you already get great value. But there's more: The Onsen is also very nice and for this price level good value. There is an outside rotemburo, reclining chairs and the specialty: a hot stone room where you lie on hot pebbles (be sure to bring a very thick towel to lie on!) and listen to relaxing music. ||The third joker is the food: wonderful sets of very tasty kaiseki - like menus for dinner as well as for breakfast.||Well, to be honest, there is one downside: The hostel lies in a wonderful natural setting in the green hills of the Izu peninsula, but to get there you either have to use the infrequent public bus or use your own wheels like rental car. ||All in all I really recommend this place especially if you like calm settings with nature around you and...