Ryokan Kurashiki Onsen

Ryokan Kurashiki Onsen provides bicarbonate-rich thermal bathing in Kurashiki — one of Japan's most beautifully preserved Edo-period commercial towns, where white-walled kura (storehouse) buildings reflected in the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter's willow-fringed canal create a townscape so perfectly preserved that it appears as a film set of 19th-century Japan rather than a living city. Thermal bathing in a traditional ryokan in Kurashiki allows immersion in the cultural life of a town that also houses the Ōhara Museum of Art — Japan's first Western art museum, opened in 1930, with an extraordinary collection including El Greco, Monet, and Renoir alongside Japanese Mingei folk art. The proximity to the Seto Inland Sea, the islands of the Setouchi Art Triennale (Naoshima, Teshima, Inujima), and the Kibi Plains cycling route through ancient Yamato kingdom tumuli give Kurashiki's onsen ryokan an exceptionally cultured Okayama Prefecture setting.