Shima Onsen Sekizenkan

Shima Onsen Sekizenkan in Nakanojo, Gunma Prefecture, is one of Japan's most celebrated traditional ryokan, an eighteenth-century wooden inn of extraordinary atmospheric character that provided the visual inspiration for the iconic animated film Spirited Away, whose fantastical bathhouse is widely considered to echo the Sekizenkan's multi-storey red bridge, steaming spring water, and labyrinthine wooden corridors draped in lantern light. The siliceous spring water drawn from the Shima valley's geothermal sources fills deep wooden baths of great antiquity, providing a bathing experience that is as much a journey through Japanese cultural history as a therapeutic mineral cure. Staying at Sekizenkan is among the most complete expressions of traditional Japanese hospitality culture available to contemporary travellers, combining remarkable cuisine, tatami room living, and waters that have soothed guests for over three hundred years.