Dōgo Onsen

Dōgo Onsen, on the edge of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku, is counted among the oldest hot springs in Japan: its waters appear in the eighth-century poetry anthology Man'yōshū. Local tradition tells of an injured egret that healed its leg in the spring, and a second legend credits two gods, Ōkuninushi and Sukunabikona, with bathing here; a stone called Tama no ishi is held up as a relic of the second story.

Its emblem is the Honkan, the main bathhouse, completed in 1894 under the master carpenter Sakamoto Matahachirō. It is a rambling wooden building of three storeys, crowned by the Shinrōkaku, a little lookout pavilion housing a taiko drum that is struck three times a day to mark opening, noon and evening. Further wings were added in 1899 and 1924, among them the Yushinden, a private bath built for the imperial family, and in 1994 the whole complex was designated an Important Cultural Property. A long conservation project ran from 2019 to July 2024, with bathing continuing in part of the building throughout.

Inside, the Honkan is arranged on several levels, with the Kami-no-yu baths on the ground floor and the smaller Tama-no-yu above. Natsume Sōseki bathed here while teaching in Matsuyama in the 1890s and sent the hero of his novel Botchan to the same baths; a small third-floor room where he is said to have relaxed is named after the book. The building also fed into the imagined bathhouse of Hayao Miyazaki's film Spirited Away, a debt the director has acknowledged.

Getting there

Dōgo lies about 2.4 km from central Matsuyama. Matsuyama Airport (MYJ) is about 8.5 km away, and an airport limousine bus runs to Dōgo Onsen Station in around forty minutes. From Matsuyama City Station the Iyotetsu tram takes about twenty minutes to the Dōgo Onsen terminus, a few minutes' walk from the Honkan.