Shika-no-yu — the deer's baths

photo by Hiroki Sato · CC BY 3.0

Six baths between 41 and 48 degrees, open for 1,300 years: Bashō passed through here on his way north.

Legend has it that a hunter, Kanō Saburō Yukihiro, wounded a white deer and followed it to a hot spring where the animal was healing its wound: hence the name, ‘deer's bath’. It is the oldest spring of the Nasu hot springs, and the oldest in the whole prefecture, ahead of Shiobara and Nikkō. The bathing hall, in the form of a traditional communal bathhouse, has six baths at rising temperatures (41, 42, 43, 46, 48 °C on the men's side; five grades on the women's side), designed for gradual immersion.

The poet Matsuo Bashō stopped here during the journey told in ‘Oku no Hosomichi’ (late seventeenth century), surprised by the strength of the sulphurous water; a stone marker with one of his haiku stands near the Sesshō-seki, a little further up. The water is a strongly sulphurous acidic sulphate, different from the milder waters of many other Japanese hot spring resorts.

ℹ️ Paid public bath: check opening hours and fees on the official site. The spring water is intense and may not suit people who are not used to sulphurous waters; short soaks are recommended.

🚉 湯本二丁目 · 5 min walk

Sources: shikanoyu.jp

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