Kotori

Kotori is an eight-room inn in Arima, two minutes’ walk from its sister inn, Miyukiso Hanamusubi. Rooms are named after birds and worked around a flower theme: one Japanese-style room with its own open-air bath, five further Japanese rooms and two Western ones. Only that one room has a bath and toilet, the rest using shared facilities, and there is no lift, so the upstairs rooms mean stairs.

Arima has two waters, and Kotori pipes the silver one (銀泉): a radon-bearing spring, listed as a simple weak radioactive spring, served heated. Its two indoor silver-spring baths, Koto-no-yu in Japanese marble and the Western-styled Suzu-no-yu, are not run communally but booked for private use, free, 45 minutes at a time, first come first served, from 15:00. For a large bath, guests use Hanamusubi’s gold-spring (金泉) baths, free and as often as they like. Hanamusubi’s seventh-floor reservable gold-spring open-air bath costs 2,200 yen an adult, two-person minimum, and 1,100 yen for ages 3 to 12; the inn’s own pages disagree on whether it must be booked ahead or can only be taken if a slot is free that day. The room called Mukudori has a private silver-spring open-air bath, usable around the clock.

Dinner is a monthly-changing kaiseki (会席) at 18:00 or 19:00 in Hanamusubi’s dining room; breakfast, 07:30 or 08:30, is in Kotori’s lounge.

Check-in 15:00, check-out 10:00. Free pickup from Arima Onsen Station, 09:00 to 20:00. Cash only. Children are accepted; pets are not.