The Best Hotels in Matsumoto

Every room at this ryokan-adjacent retreat in Asama Onsen comes with its own private spring-fed bath, which freed up the old communal soaking hall to become a restaurant, café, bakery, bookshop, and shop. The bones of the original inn, an old-school fixture of this resort town, survived the redesign even if what stands now looks quietly modern. The name translates loosely as "ten stories," referring to chapters of history rather than floors.

Three natural hot spring baths face the forested mountainsides of Yatsugatake National Park, open around the clock and framed by nothing but trees. This classic ryokan, half an hour outside Matsumoto, keeps its rooms spare by design: tatami, shoji screens, and floor-to-ceiling views do all the work. Some rooms add a private open-air onsen bath. A shuttle runs to and from the station, which is two and a half hours from Tokyo and feels like considerably more.