THE RYOKAN COLLECTION

Each guest room has a private bath filled from Gora’s own clear, chloride springs, but the spacious communal baths come from a different source: the steamy volcanic vents of Owakudani. These waters have an entrancing milky sheen thanks to high levels of skin-frienly natrium and calcium. During the day, the baths offer panoramic mountain views framed by forest boughs, but the experience is sublime at night, when the dim overhead lights cast reflections on the water that pirouette silently across the ceiling and make crystals in the stone walls glimmer like stars.