Ryotei Tanokura
由布院温泉 旅亭 田乃倉
Does Ryotei Tanokura allow tattoos? In a private bath
Tanokura sells itself as a cooking inn first, and it books only eleven rooms so the kitchen can keep up. Each of them has its own bath, five of those open to the air on the ground floor.
Every one of the eleven rooms has a bath in it, so the shared baths are optional here. Five ground-floor rooms have an open-air bath; the upstairs rooms have an indoor one, in cypress in the twin deluxe. The annex, Nanagawa, is maisonette rooms that pair an open-air bath with an indoor bath. There is no kashikiri bath and no published tattoo rule for the two shared baths.
The bath
The inn’s line is that hot spring is piped into every one of its rooms, so an upstairs bath is the same water as a garden one, only under a roof. The five ground-floor rooms have an open-air bath and a hiroen looking onto a garden of their own: Hosen-no-ma at ten mats plus eight, Shurin-no-ma at twelve plus eight with the hiroen, a one-room ten-mat type that takes no children, a two-room type that does, and a Japanese-Western room with twin beds. Upstairs the twin deluxe has a cypress tub wide enough to stretch your legs out in, and its windows face the trees running down toward Kinrin Lake. The annex, Nanakawa, is maisonette Japanese-Western rooms with an open-air bath and an indoor one, both source-fed, reached from the main building by an inside passage.
The two shared baths, Kinrin-no-yu and Genryu-no-yu, run on water that comes up on the property. Each has an outdoor tub, and the men’s and women’s sides swap at 5:00, so one night gets you into both. The bath page’s table gives the hours as 15:00 to 24:00 and 5:00 to 10:00. Guests may also use the two large baths at the sister inn next door, Yufuin Santokan, which makes four in walking distance of your slippers.
The hotel
Eleven rooms and a kitchen that sets the pace: the inn calls itself a cooking inn and builds the stay around kaiseki, several of its plans served in the room rather than a dining hall. Every room is non-smoking, with two smoking places outside, one on the outer corridor and one at the entrance to the Togoan dining room.
What is good about it
- Eleven rooms, eleven baths, all of them spring water, and five of those open to the air.
- The shared baths change sides at 5:00, so a single night covers both of them.
- Guests bathe next door too, in the two large baths at the sister inn Yufuin Santokan.
Getting there
Two minutes from Kinrin Lake and about 15 on foot from Yufuin STN. Some of the inn’s plans include a car from the station, which is the one to pick if you are carrying luggage.
Yufuin STN · JR Kyudai line; the Yufuin no Mori and Yufu limited expresses from Hakata
About 15 minutes.
Some stay plans include a pickup from the station.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Yufuin no Mori limited express 2 h 14
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Hotel locationYufuin STN
What happens when you arrive
Skip the shared baths and reserve the private one the way this page describes. Once the door is closed, the bath is yours.
How we know
Confirmed from official site, bath structure rather than a tattoo policy (the operator’s rooms page lists the bath in each of the eleven rooms)
Read on: yufuin-tanokura.com/room/index.html
Best for: Eating a long kaiseki dinner and then bathing without leaving the room
Eleven rooms; five with an open-air bath, the rest with an indoor one. The shared baths are Kinrin-no-yu and Genryu-no-yu. The annex Nanagawa is sold separately on some sites and is all open-air-bath rooms.
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