Togura Kamiyamada Onsen

Togura Kamiyamada Onsen in Chikuma city, Nagano Prefecture, developed as a geisha entertainment district onsen during the early twentieth century, when the mineral springs of this Chikuma River valley town attracted merchants, artists, and writers from the cities of the Kanto and Chubu regions seeking both physical restoration and the cultivated pleasures of geisha hospitality in a tradition that continues in several establishments maintaining the old onsen entertainment culture. The siliceous spring water flows warm and skin-smoothing from the volcanic geology of the Nagano mountains, providing mineral baths that complement the valley's superb local rice, sake, and the beautiful natural scenery of the Chikuma River corridor between the Northern Alps and the Ueda Basin. The onsen's historical connection to Japanese entertainment culture gives it a social depth that pure therapeutic facilities seldom achieve.