Overview

Stay at Matsumoto Jūjō in Asama Onsen, a historic hot spring district around 30 minutes by bus from central Matsumoto. The project continues the story of Koyanagi, an inn founded in 1686, while introducing a new way to experience the surrounding onsen town.

Matsumoto Jūjō consists of two hotels with different characters. Matsumoto Honbako focuses on books, design, and quiet time, while Koyanagi welcomes couples, families, babies, and young children. Together, the two buildings contain 38 rooms, each with its own open-air bath supplied with natural Asama Onsen water.

The experience extends beyond your room. You can browse a large bookstore, choose between two restaurants, visit a bakery and local shop, enjoy a drink at the bar, or walk through the neighbourhood to reach two additional cafés. Instead of placing everything inside one building, Matsumoto Jūjō encourages you to explore Asama Onsen as part of your stay.

Accommodation

Choose between Matsumoto Honbako and Koyanagi according to the atmosphere and room layout you prefer. Every room has Wi-Fi and a private open-air hot spring bath, allowing you to soak whenever you choose.

Matsumoto Honbako is a book hotel with 24 rooms. Exposed concrete, original structural details, simple furnishings, and carefully selected books create a distinctive setting for reading and rest. Each room and corridor has a different book collection chosen by writers, artists, and other cultural figures.

The Standard Twin combines two beds with seating, a terrace, and a private cypress bath. The Yuzaka Twin is a corner room with windows on two sides, a terrace facing Yuzaka Street, and separate areas for bathing and outdoor relaxation.

The Designer Twin includes two regular beds, a sofa, and two enclosed study-nook beds inspired by childhood hiding places. These additional spaces can also be used for sleeping, making the room suitable when you stay with family or friends. A work desk gives you space to read, write, or work during a longer visit.

The larger Honbako suites include separate living areas, Japanese rooms where futons can be prepared, and more spacious bathing facilities. Selected suites add a kitchenette, wine cellar, work desk, terrace, or views toward Matsumoto and the Northern Japanese Alps.

The Corner Suite looks toward the garden and a traditional storehouse. Its Japanese room can become a private reading or meditation space when you close the sliding doors.

The Panorama Suite and Terrace Suite give you wider mountain and city views. The Terrace Suite also includes an outdoor living area and a kitchen with counter seating.

The Grand Suite occupies a top-floor corner and is the largest room at Matsumoto Honbako. Wide west-facing windows look toward the Northern Japanese Alps, while the private open-air bath has space where two people can sit comfortably during a longer soak.

Matsumoto Honbako rooms do not have televisions. The focus remains on books, views, conversation, and the private bath. Uneven floors and steps also make this building less suitable when you require full wheelchair access.

Koyanagi uses natural wood, diatomaceous-earth walls, soft lighting, and well-known pieces of European and Japanese furniture. Room choices include compact double rooms, twin rooms, garden rooms, larger family layouts, accessible accommodation, and spacious suites.

The Comfort Double provides a queen bed, desk, and private semi-open-air bath. It works well when you travel alone or as a couple and prefer a smaller, straightforward layout.

Comfort Twin rooms combine two beds with a generous desk and either tatami or wooden flooring. Garden Twin rooms look toward the courtyard and traditional storehouse, while Large Garden Twin rooms add more living space and wider views across the garden and town.

The Koyanagi Junior Suite combines a tatami bedroom with a separate living area and carefully selected furniture. The One-Room Terrace Suite removes internal partitions to create one open living and sleeping space, with windows on two sides and a private wooden terrace.

The top-floor Terrace Suite includes a bedroom, Japanese room, outdoor deck, private hot spring bath, and furniture by Danish designer Finn Juhl. The Japanese room can also accommodate futons when you need additional sleeping space.

Koyanagi also has a spacious Universal Room designed for easier wheelchair movement. Selected floors include family-friendly rooms that can be prepared with a cot, bouncer, toys, picture books, baby shampoo, a toddler toilet seat, additional towels, and diaper-care items. Strollers are available with these room categories, subject to availability.

Koyanagi rooms include portable televisions that can be used without a power cable, including near the bathing area. Matsumoto Honbako suites have kitchens for preparing baby food or simple meals, although cooking with oil is not permitted.

Dining

Choose between 367 at Matsumoto Honbako and Alps Table at Koyanagi. Each restaurant uses ingredients, food traditions, and stories connected to Shinshu, but the dining style differs.

At 367, you enjoy a wood-fired dinner based on the landscape, climate, history, and food culture of Nagano. The restaurant takes its name from the 367-kilometre Shinano River, known as the Chikuma River near its source.

Dinner combines dishes cooked over the wood-fired grill with fermentation techniques associated with Shinshu. The main course may include pasture-raised pork from Azumino and fish from the Sado Strait, where the Shinano River reaches the Sea of Japan. Dinner normally has two starting times and requires a reservation.

Breakfast at 367 focuses on vegetables, freshly baked bread, and lighter dishes designed to begin your morning without feeling heavy. Breakfast reservations are arranged in timed intervals.

Alps Table provides a more relaxed family dining experience. The menu draws inspiration from Northern Italian cooking in communities near the Alps, using produce from Shinshu and bread baked at Alps Bakery.

The dinner course has fewer stages and is served at a steady pace, making it easier when you dine with children. A play space sits inside the restaurant, and projection mapping introduces the way apples, rice, and other ingredients grow in Nagano.

Fresh bread from Alps Bakery appears at dinner and breakfast. You can dine at Alps Table without children, although the restaurant maintains an informal family atmosphere where younger children can move around freely.

When you stay at Koyanagi, you can also choose 367 if you prefer the wood-fired dining experience. Your restaurant, meal times, and menu depend on your selected accommodation plan.

Onsen and Wellness

Every room at Matsumoto Jūjō includes an open-air bath supplied with natural water from Asama Onsen. The spring is a clear, colourless, and almost odourless simple alkaline hot spring with a gentle feel against the skin.

The water flows into each room bath without a circulation pump. A boiler regulates the temperature because the water can cool while travelling from the source, but the natural spring water itself remains in use. You can add cold water when the bath feels too hot.

Your private bath gives you complete control over when and how long you soak. Depending on your room, the bath may face the courtyard, garden, town, Yuzaka Street, or the Northern Japanese Alps.

Koyanagi no Yu provides an additional shared bathing experience. This simple half-open-air bath recreates the historic bathhouse once used by lower-ranking samurai in Asama Onsen. It has a changing room, shower, and natural hot spring bath, but no large washing area.

Shampoo and body soap are not provided at Koyanagi no Yu. Take the wooden washbasin and towel from your room and wash before entering the water. The bath remains available from the afternoon until the following morning.

Matsumoto Jūjō does not have a large public bath. The main bathing experience takes place in your room, giving you more privacy than a traditional communal onsen layout.

Guests with Tattoos

When you have tattoos, use the private open-air hot spring bath in your room. Every room includes its own bath, so you can enjoy the Asama Onsen water at any time without entering a shared bathing space.

Facilities

Matsumoto Honbako Book Store holds around 10,000 books across five themed sections. You can explore photography, art, essays, introductory works, children’s books, and titles chosen to introduce you to subjects you may not have considered before. You can continue reading late into the evening, and the books are available to purchase.

Honbako Bar sits beside the Matsumoto Honbako reception desk. You can choose draft beer, craft beer, original hard cider, wine, or Japanese sake, then take your drink to a terrace or back to your room. Complimentary coffee is also available inside Matsumoto Honbako.

At Alps Bakery, bread is made with flour grown and milled in Shinshu. You can browse the bakery together with Asama Onsen Shoten, which brings together food, drinks, and lifestyle goods connected to Matsumoto and Nagano.

The Shinshu Fermentation Laboratory produces hard cider and explores the fermentation culture of the region. You may also encounter fermented ingredients through the menus and drinks served across the property.

Oyaki & Coffee acts as both a café and the main check-in point. It occupies part of the historic Mutsumi no Yu bathhouse near the parking area, around three minutes on foot from the accommodation buildings. When you arrive, you receive a welcome snack and hand-dripped coffee before walking through the onsen district to your hotel.

Philosophy & Sweets sits in a restored wooden building a short walk away. Bookshelves focus on philosophy and ideas, while the café serves sweets, drinks, and light food. Conversation is kept quiet, creating a setting where you can read or think without the atmosphere of a busy coffee shop.

Self-service drink and snack areas are available on the accommodation floors. Your room includes a reusable tumbler, and towel warmers allow you to dry your bath towels between soaks.

Wi-Fi is available in every room. You can also borrow chargers, an iron, scissors, nail clippers, a thermometer, or a firmer pillow from reception, subject to availability.

Activities

Spend time reading inside Matsumoto Honbako, choosing books from the shelves in your room, or relaxing beside the private bath. You can move between the bookstore, bar, bakery, shop, restaurants, and cafés without needing to plan a full sightseeing schedule.

The layout also encourages you to walk through Asama Onsen. Check-in takes place away from the main hotel buildings, while Philosophy & Sweets and other neighbourhood businesses give you reasons to explore the narrow streets and older bathhouse district.

Central Matsumoto is easy to reach by local bus or taxi. You can visit Matsumoto Castle, explore the traditional buildings and craft shops around Nakamachi Street, walk beside the Metoba River, or see the collections at Matsumoto City Museum of Art.

A seasonal reserved bus may connect Matsumoto Jūjō with Sawando, Hirayu, and Takayama. From Sawando, you can continue by public transport into Kamikochi. Operating dates and schedules change, so this service should be arranged as part of your travel planning.

After returning to Asama Onsen, you can pick up bread from the bakery, order a drink at Honbako Bar, choose another book, and finish the evening in your private hot spring bath.

Additional Features

Check-in begins at 15:00, and check-out is by 11:00. Check-in normally takes place at Oyaki & Coffee rather than inside the accommodation building.

Parking is not located directly beside the hotel rooms. The accommodation parking area sits next to Oyaki & Coffee, around three minutes away on foot. This short walk takes you through part of the Asama Onsen neighbourhood before you reach Matsumoto Honbako and Koyanagi.

From Matsumoto Station, the local bus journey to Asama Onsen takes around 30 minutes. A taxi normally takes around 20 minutes. A regular station shuttle is not provided.

Matsumoto Jūjō suits you when you want more than a conventional ryokan stay. You can choose the book-focused atmosphere of Matsumoto Honbako or the family-friendly design of Koyanagi, while enjoying a private open-air hot spring bath in every room.