Arima Kirari

Arima Kirari stands on high ground at Ike-no-shiri, about 550 m from Arima Onsen station; the hotel says outright that part of that walk is a steep climb. Its six room categories are all tatami-floored Japanese rooms, from eight mats to a sixteen-mat room sleeping eight, in 55 rooms.

The gold spring in the guest-only baths comes partly from a source inside the hotel’s own grounds, with Arima’s Gokuraku and Arimei sources: the iron- and salt-bearing water that runs reddish-brown. The silver spring is the radon-bearing kind. The men’s and women’s baths, Hekisui and Togen, are indoors, open 15:30–24:00 and 06:00–10:00. A lift from the fourth and fifth floors leads into Taiko no Yu, a 7,000 sq m complex on the same plot, free to guests for two days — 26 baths and steam rooms, six open-air. One rock bath there is described as free-flowing gold spring; the water is otherwise classified as heated and recirculated. No guest room has a hot spring bath, as all six room pages state; there is no reservable private bath. Tattoos are barred from every communal bath.

Dinner is in the guest dining room, never in the room, at 18:00 or 19:30. The kitchen calls it shin-washoku, a fusion kaiseki, and changes the menu six times a year. Breakfast is a buffet, in three sittings.

Check-in is 15:00, checkout 10:30. A free shuttle runs to the station until 20:20, and staff will fetch guests by car on request. Children of any age are accepted.