Nishimuraya Honkan

Nishimuraya Honkan is a ryokan set at the centre of Kinosaki Onsen, on Japan's Hyōgo coast. A Japanese-style garden anchors the main building, and most rooms face it directly through paper sliding doors and a wooden terrace, or hiroen, a feature the property calls one of the ryokan tradition's defining touches. Rooms run from an eight-tatami standard to the three-room, 15-tatami Honjin suite on the third floor. Several carry their own soaking tub: cedar in the Matsu suite, cypress or ceramic in the garden-view Western-Japanese room, towada stone and cypress in the Botan suite. The Kangetsu suite, in the annex, has a 16-tatami room and a private garden. Water in these in-room baths is heated, not drawn from the hot spring, a distinction the ryokan makes to preserve the town's shared onsen supply. You can still take the mineral water in the communal baths downstairs. Check-in is from 3pm; the minimum age to stay is ten.