Sanraku-sō — Hotel in Tokyo

Amazing food and a peaceful and perfectly secluded location at the head of some AWESOME hiking trails.||||THE ROOMS/BATHS:||On this, our second stay at Sanrakuso, we happened to be the only guests (since it was a Friday night in the early spring low season), but we were very far from neglected or forgotten! We had the same great room as our late-summer visit several months ago: plenty of tatami area for two, plus a little sunroom sitting area with two cozy armchairs that looks out over the front garden area. Being mid-April, it's still quite chilly (especially since it was a rainy day) and as uninsulated as traditional Japanese buildings are, it was cold. The propane heater supplied in our room quickly got it warmed up upon our arrival, but I'm a migraine sufferer and quite sensitive to odors, and I just couldn't handle the propane odor. No problem at all, they replaced it with some sort of radiant electric one that was odorless!||||The rooms in the upstairs wing we were in (4 rooms there) don't have bathrooms but the shared ones (2 stalls in the women's) and 4 sinks are right directly across the hall. The ofuro (shared public baths) are on the opposite end of the inn and aren't all that fabulous (spacious and clean, with plenty of shower/washing stations but the baths are nothing very special) but functional. But it's all good because we go to Mount Mitake for hiking & chilling in nature, not onsen/hotspring bathing.||||THE FOOD!||Being a ryokan, dinner is included and is frankly the highlight! This time around we were alone in one small section (closed off with rice paper room dividers for heating purposes) of the inn's big main tatami room, which was full of other guests last summer when we stayed. This main room/dining area is chock full of nicknacks, scrolls and beautiful screens.We happily feasted on all kinds of local spring mountain vegetables, steamed, pickled, simmered, etc., as well as small stuffed with rice fish steamed in leaf-wrappers that the owner caught himself (and that simply melted in our mouths!), a boar meat and veggies miso nabe (stew) cooked on burners on our table, etc., as well as some spectacularly fresh veg light and perfect tempura, plus some other small things I'm probably forgetting (soup, rice). Dessert (who has room at this point!) was thankfully a couple of sublimely sweet, crunchy yet tender slices of freshly candied Japanese orange. Breakfast is a very decent traditional Japanese breakfast, a fried egg, a hearty miso soup, a huge bowl of rice porridge, etc. There was no fish, for those that find that difficult in the morning!||||LOCATION||Okay, sorry! As you can tell, we're foodies! But apart from the food and hospitality we love Sanrakuso's location. Mount Mitake Village is quite small and secluded as it is, what with the cable-car trip up and all. We like the fact that Sanrakuso's down a side alley kind of path, perched just above another path that is one of the main hiking trails that takes you to the top of Mt. Hinode and branches into other trail options. We also love the "Rock Garden" trail, which is a very tame but absolutely gorgeous hike and is about a 20-30 minute walk from the inn, I think. Though we tend to take longer, stopping on the tiny main street to look at the handful of souvenir/sweet shops and/or going all the way up to the shrine first (the turn-off to the Rock Garden trail is actually about 1/3 of the way up the shrine's front stairs).||||General English maps are available online (http://www.mitaketozan.co.jp/english/index.html) and at the visitor center in the village but if you're looking for detailed trail maps, we were unable to find anything but Japanese. With basic Japanese skills you can manage with the signage, since trails are well-marked.||||Getting there's pretty easy too. Check out the Googlemap location of the hotel. Be sure to turn left where indicated, even though it doesn't look like you should because the road is more like a path on the left, paved and wide on the right going up the hill, and also because there's these strange machinery yard looking things right there by the path. But that's fine, just keep going and when you see an old fashioned shed with wooden wagon wheels and stuff on it, you're almost there! Pass through the archway with the red lanterns on both sides of the path and that's the...

Amazing ryokan in an amazing place. The hosts were very nice people. The food was worth the experience in itself. Very different from anything we’d ever had. The Onsen was amazing. The room was big and comfortable. The only downside I thought was that you had to pay 3,000 yen per person to join the morning prayer practice, which seemed expensive. This made it feel more like a ryokan compared to a shukubo because other places we looked at had this included in the stay for a similar price. Overall an amazing experience. Mount mitake is an amazing place to spend a night and hike...

Second best experience near Kyoto : everything that a Ryokan has to offer is here and meeting the Shinto priest has been an unbelievable experience.

Rooms are traditional with toilets outside. Kaiseki dinner and breakfast with products from ONLY the forest is an incredible moment

Indoor onsen

It is just perfect and quite remote in the village (10 to 15 minutes walk from the funicular station) so if you like also for a quiet moment : this...