Gora Onsen Hot Spring, Kanagawa

In the Hakone area of Kanagawa Prefecture, next to Yumoto Onsen, there are a lot of hotels, Gora Onsen Hot Spring Resort. This is a hot spring resort ideal for weekend trips, which is about 35 minutes by Hakone Tozan Railway from Odakyu Line Yumoto Onsen Station and 2 hours from Shinjuku. Spring cherry blossoms, summer “Daimonji-Yaki” (the Great Bonfire Event), Autumn leaves, mountains of winter snow, and other seasonal charm.
Gora Onsen Hot Spring Resort is located on the middle of Mt. Soun nearby the northeastern part of the outer crater of Hakone, and began to draw a hot water from Kowakudani Valley in 1894. Many villas were built in the Meiji era, when the Hakone Tozan Railway opened in Taisho era, development began full-scale. In 1949, it succeeded in drilling hot springs and it is still popular as a hot spring where you can enjoy the three spring fountains of simple fountain, chloride fountain and sulfate spring. There are 14 onsen ryokan and hotel, well known as one of the leading sightseeing spots in Hakone Onsen with lots of luxury inns and corporate recreation facilities.
Hakone ropeway is a Hakone climbing cable car (mountaineering railroad), connecting the Togendai station on the bank of Ashinoko from Sounzan station 6 station from Gora station. From the gondola you can see the majestic landscape of the outer crater of Hakone and you can see many sightseeing spots such as Kowakudani Valley where you can see the active volcanoes of Hakone in the middle.
There are also many sightseeing spots in Sengokuhara Onsen and Kowakudani Onsen near Gora Onsen. Sengokuhara Onsen has many attractive museums such as the Pola Museum of Art and “Venetian Glass Museum“.
Kowakudani Onsen has the “Hakone Kowakien Garden Yunessan”, and there is the Okada Art Museum that displays masterpieces of Ukiyoe of Kitagawa Utamaro.
If you get off the cable car and the ropeway at the foot, there are many sightseeing places such as Ashinoko and the Barrier of Hakone.

Full-scale development started in 1912

Gora was a prairie without even a house until hot spring development started in 1894. Full-scale development started in 1912 and afterwards Gora Park of the first French style garden in Japan opened in 1914. The mountain railway was opened for traffic to Gora in 1919, and the whole neighborhood was sold in lots with the hot spring. Then political-and-business-circles people and literary men competed, the big cottage was built, and the rows of houses of the present Gora were produced.

The meaning “hell of a stone” in Sanskrit

This area that spreads at the base of Mt. Soun is the sloping ground made in sedimentary rock, and the name ‘Ghorra’ derives from an opinion of since the stone is rolling. In addition, there is also an opinion of having been named from the meaning “hell of a stone” in Sanskrit.

You can take a bath in the same areas various kinds of hot springs

The number of the fountainhead has no less than 46 places, and the milky hot water which pulled spring quality from the Owakudani Valley and the simple sulfur spring which pulled and carried out hot water from Mt. Soun are centers. It is charm of Gora Hot Spring that you can take a bath in the same areas various kinds of hot springs including simple spring, salt spring, hydrogen carbonate spring.

“Daimonji yaki” lit as a bonfire with fireworks

A scene is good and “Daimonji yaki” lit as a bonfire with fireworks at the season of the Bon Festival is popular. Especially the time of fresh green or autumnal leaves has many tourists, and is very crowded.

Convenient as a base of the sightseeing

Gora Hot Spring is located in the slope of the northeast of Mt. Kamiyama with the highest altitude in Hakone, and it is a town of “the hill and the Onsen” with abundant hot springs which looks at Mt. Myojogatake at the front. As “the destination station of a mountain railway”, “the starting station of a cable line”, and the only terminal at which “the tour bus around the Hakone institution” crosses, Access is good and convenient as a base of the sightseeing located at the center in Hakone.

Information(Access, Price/Charge, Tel, Address, Official site, etc.)