Atami Hot Spring with 1,200 years of history and Kiunkaku with Japanese spirits
Atami is famous as a hot spring place in Japan.
It has more than 1,200 years of history.
According to legend, it is the origin of Atami Hot Spring that fishes were dead by suddenly boiled water
in the sea and a priest named Mangan moved
“hot spring”
from the sea to the mountain by his praer to help troubled fishermen.
Ieyasu TOKUGAWA who was the founder of the Edo Shogunate loved the hot springs of Atami and he had
it carried to Edo.
There are a lot of tourists from both Japan and abroad in Atami, and a lot of hot spring inns with
Japanese spirits are lined up there.
One of them is Kiunkaku that was built in 1919.
It has been opened to the public as a Atami city owned tourist facility since 2000, but when it was an inn,
famous, great writers like Naoya SHIGA, Junichiro TANIZAKI, and Osamu DAZAI had often visited there.
Kiunkan has the garden with rich nature surrounded with the main building, the outbuilding,
and the European-style building.
It is filled with stillness and people will be calmed by the beautiful and large tatami floored area with the history and Japanese spirits.
In the tatami floored corridor, there is the wooden floor only around the window to avoid the tatami
is damaged by dew condensation or moisture, and each window glass is
“Taisho glass”
made by craftsmen.
It’s necessary to see the European-style building that remains fireplaces and antique furnitures.
People can be relaxed to spend very Japanese time at Atami Hot Spring and Kiunkaku.
Source of photos:
https://fontenu-atami.com/guide/%E8%B5%B7%E9%9B%B2%E9%96%A3/
