Unzen Kyushu Hotel

The Kyushu Hotel opened in May 1917 and stands in the middle of Unzen Jigoku: step out of the door and you are on the paths between the steam vents. The guest book the hotel lists runs from Rabindranath Tagore in 1924 and Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 to Emperor Showa and Empress Kojun in 1949 and the present Emperor and Empress, then Crown Prince and Princess, in 1996. It was rebuilt and reopened on 25 May 2018 as a small adult-oriented resort with 25 rooms, keeping the old exterior look and a lobby that mixes Japanese, Chinese and Dutch design. The 21 main-building rooms are all 62 square meters, with beds, a raised tatami area and a semi-open-air bath; four 90-square-meter villas have an open-air bath and their own garden sauna. Be clear on two things before booking. There is no large public bath, only the ones in the rooms, and the hotel says the water is not 100 percent straight from the source: it is often heated or diluted. Some rooms look over the jigoku, others mostly at trees. Dinner is a Japanese-Western course in the dining room, called 1917, and a café and bar on the second floor opens in the afternoon and again in the evening.