After making my pilgrimage to the real-life village from Your Name, I decided to take the Hida Express down to Gero Onsen; a popular hot springs town and resort destination in Gifu Prefecture. I arrived at the perfect time in early April when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and nearly everything in nature looked picturesque. The town is pretty straightforward to navigate with a river that surrounds a free public outdoor hot spring and several buildings with more hot springs and saunas available for day use. There are more secluded resorts up in the mountains. Even if you’re not interested in hot springs, there are still a number of parks and shrines that you can see. I spent around three hours exploring Gero Onsen and it was very aesthetic day trip.
When I got off at Gero Onsen Station, I first walked to the Funsenchi outdoor hot spring so I could see the beautiful park next to it. This is the best place to view the sakura in Gero making it a wonderful spot for photography. You can walk across the rocks that surround the hot spring to see the Hida River and mountains too. Walking across the bridge will give you a great view of the town as well.
Funsenchi is free to use for all visitors as long as you wear a bathing suit but it’s quite small. If you are here just for the day I recommend the following hot springs:
- Sachi no Yu: My personal favorite that has an indoor hot tub, waterfall bath, and outdoor hot spring. Entrance is only 350 yen.
- Curegarden Open-air Bath: A large collection of outdoor hot springs with amazing views. I wanted to go here, but it was sadly closed due to the COVID-19. I will go again if I get the chance. Entrance is 700 yen but likely worth it.
- Shirasagi no Yu: This is a western-styled bath with no outdoor hot springs, but reviews say it’s good. If you go, please tell me how it is. Entrance is 360 yen.
*For a full list of resorts, please see the official Gero Onsen Guide.
After bathing for an hour at Sachi no Yu and feeling completely refreshed afterward, I decided to visit a temple called Onsenji and pray to the hot spring gods. This was about a 15 minute walk on an incline but it was extremely fun because I got to see more of the town while listening to all of my favorite music. When I reached the shrine, the sun was setting and I saw an amazing view of it behind the mountains:
Another thing I love about Gero is all of the frog motifs. “Gero” is a noise that frogs make (like ribbit in English) so obviously a frog was the ideal candidate for a mascot here. I tried the Gero Manjuu from a local sweets shop and it was very delicious. I also saw frog stuffed animals in a liquor store and frogs painted on the street. This is truly a Frogger-themed onsen village and it’s kind of awesome.
After spending a good amount of time here, I decided to ride the express train down to Nagoya. I debated about spending the night here because there are cheap hotels and guest houses, but I opted to go to the city instead so I could spend time doing photo editing at one of my favorite 200 yen bars called Moonwalk. Gero Onsen is the ideal day trip but there isn’t much to do at night besides more hot springs. The quality is definitely worth it though!
Access
From Nagoya Station, take the Hida Limited Express to Gero Onsen. This takes around 2 hours and is 4700 yen one way.
I combined this with my trip to Hida-Furukawa, so from there it only takes 1 hour and 2900 yen. If you wake up early enough, you can experience Gero Onsen and the Your Name town in one day. For me, that was the ideal choice.
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