Ishikawa · KagaNo.1152★★Open in map →

Kaga Onsen Villages

onsenOff the trail — and worth it

Four hot-spring towns inland from the Sea of Japan, gathered under one name and one shinkansen stop. Each keeps a public bathhouse open to day visitors, and in Yamashiro a reconstruction of the Meiji-era bathhouse stands next to the modern one.

FromKanazawa Station
~40 minShinkansen, then local bus
Get off atKagaonsen Station (Hokuriku Shinkansen)
From there
Kaga Onsen Villages

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

These are famous resort towns, not a find, and on a weekend the inns are full. The part most visitors miss is that you do not have to be a guest to use the water. The soyu sits on the main square of each town, is priced like a neighbourhood bath rather than a resort, and opens long before the ryokan check-in hour.

Where it is

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What to look for

Katayamazu Onsen Soyu663highland / CC BY-SA 4.0

Yamashiro Onsen Kosoyua reconstruction of the Meiji bathhouse, with Kutani tiles, stained glass and no taps at all
Yamashiro Onsen Soyuthe working bathhouse opposite, undiluted source water and hand-painted Kutani tiles
Yuno-kuruwa squarethe ring of inns and shops built around the two bathhouses, a layout kept from the domain era
Yamanaka Onsen Kikunoyuseparate men's and women's bathhouses on the lacquerware street of Yuge-kaido
Kakusenkei gorgea wooded riverside path from Korogi Bridge, crossed by the curving Ayatorihashi footbridge
Katayamazu Onsen Soyua glass bathhouse by Yoshio Taniguchi where the tub reads as an extension of Shibayama Lagoon

How to actually get there

Kanazawa Station → Kagaonsen Station (Hokuriku Shinkansen).
Kagaonsen Station south exit → Yamashiro Onsen (Hokutetsu Kaga bus, Onsen-Yamanaka line, or the CANBUS mountain loop).
Wash in the Soyu, then cross the square and soak in the Kosoyu; the combined ticket is sold at either counter.
Ride the mountain loop on to Yamanaka Onsen for the Kikunoyu bathhouse and the Kakusenkei gorge, or take the sea loop toward Katayamazu.

Hokuriku Shinkansen to Kagaonsen, then a bus: Kanazawa Station →(Hokuriku Shinkansen, about 15 to 20 minutes depending on the service)→ Kagaonsen Station. From the south exit take the Hokutetsu Kaga bus on the Onsen-Yamanaka line from stand 2, or the CANBUS mountain loop, and get off at Yamashiro Onsen. Both drop you within sight of the bathhouses.
Return from Yamashiro Onsen: The same bus lines run back to Kagaonsen Station, but they are timetabled rather than frequent, so check the departure board at the stop before you go into the water. Trains back to Kanazawa run until late; the parallel IR Ishikawa Railway local line is a cheaper fallback but much slower.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Kaga Onsen is not one town but four, spread across two municipalities inland from the Sea of Japan: Yamashiro, Yamanaka, Katayamazu and Awazu. The ryokan here are the region's headline business, but every town also keeps a soyu, the communal bathhouse that the inns grew up around, and the soyu takes walk-in bathers. Yamashiro is the odd one, because it has two of them facing each other across a small square. The new Soyu draws undiluted source water and has taps and showers for washing. The Kosoyu beside it is a reconstruction of the Meiji-era bathhouse and has neither, so bathers rinse with a dipper and simply soak.

How to enjoy it

The bathhouses unlock at 6:00, so a soak before breakfast is possible even on a day trip out of Kanazawa. Use the Soyu first for washing and the Kosoyu second for the old-style bath, because the Kosoyu has no washing place and that order is what the combined ticket is designed for. If you go on to Yamanaka, the riverside tea platforms along the Kakusenkei gorge are set up from spring through autumn.

Background & history

Awazu, the westernmost of the four, is credited to the monk Taicho and dated to 718, which makes it the oldest spring in the group. Yamashiro and Yamanaka carry founding legends of their own from the same Nara-period centuries, and the Yamashiro story turns on a crow that found the spring. Katayamazu is the late arrival: its source lies under the bed of Shibayama Lagoon, and the town only took shape once Meiji-era engineers could reach it. The Kosoyu at Yamashiro rebuilds the bathhouse that stood there in the Meiji period, down to the Kutani tilework and the stained glass over the tub.

Before you go

Cash: The Kosoyu costs 700 yen for an adult at the time of checking, and a combined ticket for the Kosoyu and the Soyu next door is 1,000 yen. Soap and shampoo cannot be used in the Kosoyu, so buy the combined ticket if you want to wash as well as soak. Carry coins for the buses.
Good to know: From December to February the Yamashiro bathhouses open later and close earlier, roughly 7:00 to 21:00, and both shut on the morning of the fourth Wednesday of the month. Snow is normal here through the winter, and the bus timetable thins out in the evening in every season.
Another way: Komatsu Airport is linked to the area by the CANBUS airport route, so the towns can be reached without going through Kanazawa at all.
After you get off: At Kagaonsen Station leave by the south exit. The Hokutetsu Kaga bus stands are in front of you; the CANBUS boards separately by the green number-one sign near the shopping centre. Alight at the Yamashiro Onsen Soyu and Kosoyu stop and the square is a few steps away.