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      There’s always something special about a little sake at a ryokan. You could take it with natural views on one of the terraces.

      KIKKASO INN HAKONE

      With just three rooms, a night at the Kikkaso is both intimate and tranquil. It’s a rare opportunity to have a former Imperial villa almost all to oneself, picturesque garden included.

      History. The Fujiya Hotel in Hakone, one of Japan’s classic Western-style hotels, is steeped in it. Since opening in 1878, it has functioned as a luxury retreat for royalty and the stars, from Japan’s own Imperial Family to the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller, and John Lennon. Explore the buildings and grounds and the past immerses you. Old photographs of famous guests adorn many of the hallway walls, there are art deco interiors, aging woods, and stairs that creak as you climb them. But that's not all. The Fujiya contains one of Hakone’s best kept secrets, the Kikkaso Inn.

      Built in 1895 as a summer villa for the Emperor and Empress Meiji, and used by various members of the Imperial Family into the 1940s (when the Fujiya took control of it), the Kikkaso oozes old charm. Visit the tatami-mat dining area, where you can take a multi-dish kaiseki dinner if you don’t opt for the highly rated French cuisine at the Fujiya, and you’ll be eating in what was once the Emperor’s bedroom. Look at the pillars of Japanese cypress here and you will still see some of the iron rings that would have held up the Imperial mosquito nets, as well as iron light fittings bearing the Imperial chrysanthemum crest.

      It’s the staff that ultimately make a good ryokan stay. The concept of omotenashi—roughly meaning hospitality but with a deeper nuance of understanding and anticipating a guest’s needs—is sometimes over-hyped nowadays and when done badly lacks flexibility, but at the best ryokan, it’s the key to the experience. Generations of service means places like the Kikkaso get omotenashi just right every time.

      The Imperial adventure continues outside, where Kikkaso guests have exclusive access to the Imperial Family’s once-private stroll garden. Like the Kikkaso, which is the smallest of the former Imperial villas in Japan, the garden is an intimate affair, with a mossy pathway leading up to a small “hill” that has a view over the villa, and where a carp-filled pond is accented by a vivid vermilion bridge. Like the Meiji and Showa emperors before them, it’s very likely guests will enjoy their stroll in complete peace and quiet—there are, after all, only three guest rooms at the Kikkaso, all following the classic ryokan formula of tatami flooring, paper screen doors and, at night, futon arranged on the floor for sleeping.

      If the historic charm of the Kikkaso and the glamorous atmosphere of the Fujiya Hotel were not enough, the surrounding location also has much to recommend it. Hakone has long been a popular overnight retreat for generations of Tokyoites, because of its easy access (one hour forty minutes from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo to Hakone by the Romancecar express train), its proximity to Mount Fuji, natural hot-spring baths, and other natural attractions. The Kikkaso is conveniently situated for easy access to many local areas of interest.

      Using the trundling Tozan railway, the two-carriage switchback service that many guests take from Hakone-Yumoto Station to Miyanoshita Station, which serves the Fujiya, you can go higher and deeper into the Hakone area. Two stops up the line, at Chokoku-no-Mori Station, is the Hakone Open-air Art Museum which has a sprawling collection of outdoor sculptures, as well as a large indoor Picasso collection. One stop on, at the end of the line, comes the town of Gora, from where a funicular train runs to Mount Soun. After taking in the views here, you can take a cable car over the volcanic valley of Owakudani—a barren range dotted with bubbling hot-spring pools and steaming sulfur vents. The cable car journey ends at the attractive Lake Ashi, which offers spectacular views of Mount Fuji when the weather is clear.

      Fujiya Hotel, kikkaso inn 菊華荘

      Address: 359 Miyanoshita, Hakonemachi, Ashigarashimo-gun, kanagawa, japan 250-0404

      Telephone: 0460-82-2211

      Website: www.fujiyahotel.jp

      Email: [email protected]

      number of rooms: 3

      Room rate: ¥¥¥

      The three guest rooms at the Fujiya are relatively modest, but fully traditional. That, of course, includes the low table in the main room being moved at night and futon being prepared on the floor, so guests can fall asleep to the gentle scent of tatami.

      Guests at the Kikkaso have the option of a traditional kaiseki course featuring dishes like this, but can also dine on French cuisine at the main Fujiya Hotel.

      The garden is one of the loveliest features of the Kikkaso, especially with the accent given by the striking vermilion bridge.

      SHUHOUKAKU KOGETSU LAKE KAWAGUCHI

      About as close to a stay in the shadow of Mount Fuji as you can find, the Kogetsu gives mesmerizing views of Japan’s tallest and most iconic peak from its lakeside berth.

      Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest and most iconic peak, has inspired generations of Japanese, from artists like Hokusai and his famed woodblock prints to the haiku master Matsuo Basho. The mountain, snow-capped for much of the year, is visible as far afield as Tokyo, and has been claimed as sacred by Shinto and Buddhism. Mount Fuji has shaped Japanese culture like no other natural monument.

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