Omihachiman Onsen

Omihachiman Onsen offers mineral thermal bathing in the celebrated merchant city of Omihachiman on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa—Japan's largest lake—where the prosperity of Omi merchants (omi shonin) who traveled the country trading in the Edo period built the elegant canal district, white-walled kura storehouses, and traditional machiya townhouses of Hachimanori that now constitute one of Japan's most beautifully preserved historic merchant townscapes, designated an Important Preservation District for Historic Buildings. The alkaline thermal waters draw from the deep geological layers beneath the Lake Biwa basin, providing warm, skin-softening mineral immersion that reflects the prosperity and refinement that merchant wealth brought to this Shiga lakeside city. The reed-lined shores of Lake Biwa, Himure Hachimangu Shrine's ancient festival fire ritual, and the red-brick buildings of architect William Merrell Vories—the American missionary who spent his life building in Omihachiman—make this a destination of rare architectural and spiritual richness on the shores of Japan's ancient inland sea.