Gold leaf beaten thin, and water at forty two degrees
Gold leaf and hot water inland: reserve six nights in Kanazawa and the Kaga hot springs
Six nights from $1,980 per person, two sharing a double room. This is the first segment of the line that runs from Kanazawa to the Shonai plain, and it can be taken on its own. Late April to early June and October to mid November are the settled months; the coast is grey and wet through winter, and the spring villages fill then.
Reserve this with the officeNothing is charged here. The form stays open at any hour and a person writes back inside one working day.
What sits on this stretch of coast
Kanazawa was the seat of a wealthy domain and was never bombed, so three districts of low wooden buildings survive more or less whole: two former teahouse quarters, and a street of earthen samurai walls kept damp by a channel of running water. The city still beats most of the gold leaf used in the country, and small workshops will let you stand and watch it happen. Inland, forty to fifty minutes by road, four hot spring villages sit in one wooded valley. The water is genuinely hot and heavily mineral, and the bathing is communal and separated by sex. None of this is a preserved museum quarter. People live in the houses, the workshops take orders, and the villages fill with weekend guests from the region.
A day in the teahouse districts
Mornings are the quiet hours in the old quarters, before the first coaches arrive: an hour on foot covers one district end to end, and the lattice fronts repay more attention than the shops behind them. The covered market opens early and is a working fish market first, with crab from November and small sweet shrimp for most of the year. Afternoons tend to hold one thing rather than three, a garden, a single workshop, or the climb to the castle grounds. In the spring villages the day is shorter and duller in a useful way: two or three baths, a walk to a shrine, dinner served at a fixed hour. Most guests take a bath before breakfast and another before bed.
Getting in takes under two hours
This is the opening segment of the line, so the move into it is the light one. From the nearest large airport the ground leg is under two hours, and from the main station the transfer to your first room is fifteen to twenty five minutes. That is what the office means by a move mark of one. Getting yourself into the country is your own booking: this office keeps clear of aircraft and shipping altogether, and holds a contract with no carrier. Inside the segment the moves stay short. City to spring valley is about fifty minutes by road, and the way back is the same road. If you carry on along the line, the next move is a half day.
Inside the figure, and outside it
From $1,980 per person, two sharing a double room, for six nights. The figure holds six nights of rooms as described in the written note you receive, breakfast every morning, dinner on the two nights in the spring villages where the house serves it and nothing else is open, the road transfers named above, the garden entry and two workshop visits. It does not hold your travel into the country or home again, lunches, dinners in the city, drinks, bathing extras, or insurance of any kind, which this office does not sell and will not advise on. The operating company bills you directly, in its own name, and takes the payment. This office holds no card details. That company confirms the final figure before your dates are held.
| Nights | 6 |
|---|---|
| From | $1,980 per person, two sharing |
| Move into it | under two hours |
| Part of | Sea of Japan coast |
| Taken alone | Yes. Nothing obliges you to take the rest of the line. |
| Inside the figure | Rooms, the ground arrangements named on this page, and the local operating company's own charges. |
| Outside the figure | Getting to the country, meals not named above, anything personal, and anything you add later. |
Asked before people commit
Can I take this segment without the rest of the line?
Yes. The six nights stand alone and are sold that way. If you later add the peninsula and the mountains, the whole line costs exactly what the three segments cost added together: nothing is taken off for the chain and nothing is added on. Buying the pieces one at a time and buying the whole thing arrive at the same figure, and the office states that rather than steering you.
Will you tell me whether I need a visa?
No. This office gives no advice on visas, passports, vaccination, law or medicine, and will not read your documents or guess at your case. That is a matter for the authorities of the country whose passport you hold and the country you are entering. What we can give you is the dates and the towns you sleep in, which is usually what those authorities ask about.
Are the hot spring houses private or shared bathing?
Shared and separated by sex, which is the normal arrangement in those four villages. Two of the houses on this segment also keep a small bath that one party can hold by the hour; the office asks for that in writing when it places your reservation, and the operating company either confirms it or says no. Tattoos are still refused in some houses, so tell us in advance and we will ask first.
Segment 1 of 3 on Sea of Japan coast
You can take this segment on its own and leave the rest of the line alone. Nothing here obliges you to walk the whole thing, and the figure for one piece is the figure for one piece.
Reserve one segment, or a whole line
This form is open at any hour, and whatever reaches it is read by a person who answers inside one working day. Nothing you send commits you, and no figure is charged at this end at any point.