Echizen Kuriya Onsen Ryokan Akashi

Ryokan Akashi is a small 13-room hot spring inn standing along National Route 305 on the Echizen coast in Kuriya, Echizen Town, Fukui Prefecture. Akashi Beach lies directly in front of the inn, offering an almost private beach in summer, and the cove is also known as a dive site operated by Echizen Marine Service. Three separate sources rise along this coast, Kuriya, Nanbu and Tamagawa, and the inn draws from the Echizen No. 2 source, better known as Kuriya Onsen. It is listed by the Echizen Town Tourism Federation as one of the lodgings supplied by that source, and it has kept its family-run scale and hospitality.

The water is a sodium bicarbonate-sulfate spring, hypotonic and weakly alkaline, emerging at 39.3 degrees Celsius. Colorless and clear, it has the distinctly slippery, silky touch that sets Kuriya apart from the chloride springs found elsewhere on this coast, and it has long been called a beauty bath. The inn states that the water is served as 100 percent free-flowing spring water with no recirculation. It is said to help with neuralgia, muscle and joint pain, frozen shoulder, motor paralysis, chronic digestive complaints, poor circulation and general fatigue.

Bathing is in a gender-separated large bath and a smaller bath, both indoors; there is no open-air bath. The defining feature is that overnight guests may bathe around the clock. Guest rooms come in two types, 8 to 10 mat Japanese rooms facing the Echizen coast and cheaper mountain-side rooms. Winter brings Echizen crab, and seasonal seafood from the Sea of Japan is served year-round. Rates start at 8,330 yen with two meals, 35,200 yen for the full crab course, and 3,850 yen room only. Parking holds about 50 cars. Day-use bathing is not offered.