Lonely Planets says that you really need a car for this part of Japan, true if you want to see the un - spoilt area around this part of Japan you need to drive. We hired out a car from Kyoto and drove the distance. Fortunately the car came with Japanese satnav, with satnav in Japanese. The Mazda / Europcar person was happy to feed in the satnav address to the hotel blocking out express toll roads as requested and off we set with the night approaching. For the rest of the trip you could point and shoot the satnav via the map of where you wanted to go using an A4 decode sheet from English to Japanese.

The hotel whilst appearing as a blot on the landscape from across the bay is pleasant, clean and friendly inside. It has assorted restaurants. It is a Japanese holiday resort hotel for the Japanese. Few westerners visit the hotel which is probably why there are few reviews of it on tripadviser. English is not generally spoken by staff at the hotel but they are very friendly and... more