Places we stopped along the way

Sauna no Umeyu

From: Making New Year's Eve soba in a Kyoto townhouse

The huge Sauna no Umeyu sign

A bathhouse founded in the Meiji era, on the banks of the Takase River. When it was about to close, someone who had worked there part-time took it over, and in 2015 it became the first bathhouse run by Yutonami-sha. Both the men's and women's sides have a deep bath, a shallow jet bath, a cold bath, an electric bath, an herbal bath and a dry sauna, and at night its neon signs light up the riverside. The cold bath, said to use groundwater, was superb.

175 Iwatakicho, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto

Sources: rurubu.jp news.allabout.co.jp pref.kyoto.jp

This moment in the journey

Totonou at Sauna no Umeyu

And speaking of Kyoto specialties: public baths. After a look at the Kamo River, I crossed a little bridge over the Takase River to a retro bathhouse with SAUNA NO UMEYU painted in huge letters.

Kyoto has long had good, clean groundwater, and that makes its bathhouses special. Here, in a gathering place for the neighborhood since the Meiji era, I would wash away the fatigue of the year. Inside the noren, a beckoning cat and an old pendulum clock greeted me. I put my shoes in a locker and turned its wooden key.

The cold bath, said to use groundwater, was wonderful. Afterward I rested in the lounge facing a small courtyard garden, and when I stepped outside, Kyoto Tower stood in silhouette against the sunset. By night, the neon sign glowed over the Takase. Totonotta: body and mind, perfectly reset.

Watch this scene on YouTube4:54

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