Shuzenji Onsen Izu Bamboo River

Shuzenji Onsen in Shuzenji town, Izu Peninsula, is the Izu's most historically evocative hot spring, where the monk Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) is said to have struck the riverbed with his staff to produce the Tokko-no-yu — the original spring — in 807 AD beside the Katsura River that still flows through the bamboo-lined valley between the Jizō-no-yu riverside bath and the ancient Shuzenji Temple. The bicarbonate-rich waters flow through a compact traditional townscape of wooden ryokan, paper lantern stalls, and bamboo grove walkways that inspired numerous Japanese literary works — most notably Kawabata Yasunari's 'The Izu Dancer,' which immortalized the journey through Izu's mountain onsen towns. The Shuzenji Temple's history as a place of political exile and intrigue — where the Kamakura shogunate held and murdered political rivals — adds dramatic feudal history to this most poetically atmospheric of Izu onsen towns.