Shinano Kangetsuen

Around 1500 yen by taxi to get to the hotel from Chino stn

Beautiful though slightly older ryokan. Owners were absolutely lovely, helpful, very friendly and were great to have a chat with. Due to some communication issues we were unable to organise a meal there, but the owners were very apologetic and offered a free session in the private family onsen as recompense, which was lovely. The home made cookies were also delicious and we bought a box to take with us. This was our first ever stay in a ryokan so we were not quite sure what to expect. But I think we were all unified in our horror when we came back after dinner to see our beds. We assumed a futon mattress would be like what we are familiar with at home (Australia), which is a 10cm mattress. These were so much worse than expected, and after staying in two more ryokans during the course of our stay, we realised this is standard. That the Japanese futon mattress is about 2cm thick. I kid you not. Three of our beds had 2 of these mattress’s, and one only had one. For all intents and purposes we were basically just sleeping on the floor. Combine that with the fact the air on didn’t seem to be working and we had to leave the window open all night, I would say this was pretty much our worst night sleep for our whole trip. Which is a shame, because there was so much to love about this ryokan, its owners and the location. Such a cute and peaceful little town.