Happiness Chikatsuyu — Hotel in Tanabe

The room was big, basically a one-bedroom Japanese house — bigger than we need. It was clean and quiet. However, for the price, the food could be much better. It’s really not enough after a long hike. Dinner was basically a light vegetarian bento. We still felt hungry after dinner. Breakfast was one toast with two spoons of scrambled egg and three bites of cabbage salad. Lunch was three rice balls with a small pork ball and one fried skinny hot dog cut into three. We also had to make our own bed, which was fine if the place wasn’t the most expensive accommodation we paid in our Kumano hike. Other places we stayed at Kumano gave us much cheaper price for better facilities...

It’s sparkly clean and huge with two toilets! Though flowers are gone but you can tell it was super pretty when they bloomed. There is also a washer.

However the food, dinner, breakfast, and the bento box are all very disappointing. Dinner is cold when I got the box. Half piece of salmon, one piece shrimp tempura, and one piece of croquette are just not enough. I went to the beer garden after dinner. They don’t serve actual food, but cheese plate is better than nothing. Breakfast is nicely setup in a nearby coffee shop by a friendly old lady, but you only got one piece of toast cut in half. The bento box is basically three...

Beautiful guest house. We booked through the Kumano-Travel website and it was similarly priced to a number of other places that we stayed in, but was easily the best. The large and private house with a beautiful garden, and food provided by the local cafe more than met our needs, with the only drawback being that we could not close the blinds. I’d recommend anyone walking the Kumano Kodo take an eye mask and a pair of earbuds, and as you’re likely to encounter more than one very thin futon and pillow, I’d seriously consider carrying a light air mattress and...