Where should you go? Yunoshimakan Ryokan is a 45-minute train ride from JR Takayama Station and a two-hour drive from Shirakawago. This makes it the ideal place to travel into the Japanese Alps (or if you skip the Alps to still get a taste). A romantic place, although you can also go there with kids.

You can check in at exactly 16:00 PM (you can drop your luggage earlier) and a friendly employee will guide you to your room. Time to enjoy the view comes later, because first we look at the map of the hotel. There is a bar and a restaurant for one late night snack and a restaurant for an extensive dinner/breakfast, a foot bath, pool table, viewpoint, garden, and we're probably forgetting a few more things. Most important of all: you have access to the communal onsen with both an indoor and an outdoor pool, separate for men and women. Curious what the bath of the opposite sex looks like? The times alternate, so after a thorough cleaning you can try out both baths.

Meine gute… The dinner we ate at Yunoshimakan was, without fooling around, perhaps the best we had in all of Japan. Perhaps this is partly because we were not well prepared and we expected a small meal. The question from the staff whether they could come to our room fifteen minutes earlier to prepare dinner already gave away that the meal would be slightly larger than expected. As we plopped down on the small chairs (still not fully under control), we opened the menu. Twelve dishes? Okay, come on. It was a party with the most beautiful tableware; food tastes much better when there is a new bite under every cup and bowl. The Hida beef is a specialty of the region and the mini rolls were so tasty. And the Sakura tofu, the fresh sashimi and even the miso soup. We would sign up for it if we were served this every day. Even the tea, a big party. We were lucky that we were allowed to sit down for breakfast again less than ten hours later: once again so extensive. This time the salmon from the river was a big favourite.