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Gero is a hot spring (onsen) city located 1 hour 50mins away by train from Nagoya.
Historically, Gero Onsen was referred to as one of Japan’s three best hot springs by Confucian scholar/philosopher Hayashi Razan. The other two hot springs are Arima Onsen (Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture) and Kusatsu Onsen (Gunma Prefecture).
Upon arrival at Gero, we were greeted by the strong cold winds and hilly terrain as we pushed our luggages from the train station to our ryokan (a type of traditional Japanese inn) accommodation. There was only one Lawson’s convenience store in the area we stayed at and most of the other buildings are ryokans/hotels, eateries and souvenir shops. Everything felt slower paced at Gero and there were hardly any big groups of tourists compared to bigger cities like Takayama.
We were given a traditional Japanese room at the ryokan, which meant no beds and initially we were not sure how to set up the mattresses and covers for sleeping in the main area of the room. Thankfully, while we were at dinner, the ryokan staff came in and set up the mattresses for us.
