[Access] About 10 mins by bus from Hakone-Yumoto Station, get off at Oku-Yumoto Iriguchi
[Fee] 1,200 yen

Located in Oku-Yumoto, about a 10-minute bus ride from Hakone-Yumoto Station, is the famous Tenzan at Tenzan Toji-kyo. When I visited on a holiday before, it was so packed it felt like ‘washing potatoes’ (total human soup!), and I was pretty overwhelmed. Still, I remembered that the hot springs themselves were quite nice and the foot reflexology I had afterwards really hit the spot, so I thought it might be better on a weekday evening or night and decided to drop by.

Unfortunately, photography is strictly prohibited, so I don’t have any photos of the baths. There’s a large open-air bath, two rock baths carved into the cliffside, a semi-open-air lacquered cypress bath, a cold plunge, and a wood-fired sauna. The water in the large open-air bath and the lacquered tub is quite hot—it’s a bit of a shock at first—but the heat seeps into you, and the soft water warms you up thoroughly. The two rock baths seem to be filled with simple alkaline spring water, and since they’re a bit cooler, you can just soak and relax for a while.

While there were still plenty of people today, it wasn’t quite ‘human soup’ levels, so I felt like I could actually relax. Between eating a tororo (grated yam) set meal, getting a foot massage, hopping back into the hot springs, and lying down with a book in the separate relaxation building, I had a surprisingly peaceful time. Last time I left feeling a bit exhausted by the crowds, but at this pace, it’s really relaxing and wonderful.