Sabako-yu, Iizaka Onsen

photo by Brian Adler 05:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC) · Public domain

photo by Higa4 · CC0

Bashō slept here on 2 May 1689, with fleas and a leaking roof: he wrote about it himself.

It is the oldest public bath in Iizaka, and until the 1993 restoration it was considered the oldest wooden communal bath building in Japan; the reconstruction of that time recreated its Meiji-period appearance with hiba, keyaki and hinoki, and a bath lined with granite. The poet Matsuo Bashō spent the night of 2 May 1689 here, during the journey of the Oku no Hosomichi: he slept on wicker mats near the hearth in a poor house, with fleas, mosquitoes and a leaking roof, and he tells of it himself in the travel diary.

A public bath in Iizaka Onsen, a hot spring district in the municipality of Fukushima, one of the oldest springs in the Ōu region.

ℹ️ Open 6:00–21:00 every day except Monday (open if it is a public holiday); last entry 20 minutes before closing. Tickets: age 12 and over 400 yen, ages 1–11 200. 5 minutes’ walk from Iizaka Onsen Station (Fukushima Kōtsū Iizaka Line).

🚉 Iizaka-Onsen · 5 min walk

Sources: city.fukushima.fukushima.jp · ja.wikipedia.org

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