Atamiso

We were like most people - why stay at such a backwater location with not much around to see? In our case, we had a car, intended to hike around the Goshikinuma Ponds area (and Mt. Bandai in general) and it was perfectly located to break up our Tohoku driving trip. Not to mention, Atamiso has a stellar reputation among Japanese "in-the-know," especially for its kaiseki cuisine. The ryokan sits along the banks of the charming Gohyakugawa River, and is surrounded by lush vegetation and a beautiful small garden. The mix of good landscaping and the pretty natural environment immediately reduced our heart rate - it was a very calming atmosphere. It also helped that this is a quiet and quaint property. We didn't see or hear any guests while we stayed there (more on that in a bit), and it felt that we had the whole place to ourselves. Which we did... almost. Since we were staying the week after the Golden Week holidays, and on a weekday, we were expecting a relatively peaceful time there. What we learned is that Atamiso - at least at the moment - only accepts a maximum of 2 groups of guests, even though they have 11 total rooms. I asked several different ryokan staff members, and they all gave me slightly different explanation as to why. Our butler said that it was to ensure intimacy... the front desk/finance person said the owner is a company that acquired the ryokan 9 years ago, and wanted to keep things super small to ensure high quality service... and they haven't offered all 11 rooms to guests (at the same time) for many years. The head Chef told me that the company does not want to keep a large number of staff members, so they purposely are restricting the number of available guest rooms. Who knows what the reason is? And when Japan reopens to foreigners and COVID has run its course, will Atamiso's policy change? Hard to tell. What I can tell you is that our experience was very, very private. When making reservations, we researched each of the room options and opted for "Sogetsu," a Tokubetsu****su (Special Room) with open-air Onsen hot springs bath. The other Tokubetsu****su was "Tenga no Ma," which did not have an Onsen bath, but had a terrific view of the Gohyakugawa River and the lush foliage surrounding it. Well, they offered us BOTH rooms, so we could enjoy the best of both worlds! While we settled on Tenga no Ma, we were still given the keys to Sogetsu in case we wanted to use the Onsen in the middle of the night. Tenga no Ma was a great place to spend a peaceful time at Atamiso. It's reasonably spacious, and has a separate living room and "bedroom" (it's a tatami room where they roll out futons in the evening.) While the facilities are not shiny and new, neither was it old and worn out. While amenities were not at a world class level (i.e., single sink, slow internet, slightly dated bathroom, everything was well maintained. Ditto for Sogetsu, which lacked any view but made up for it, somewhat, with an open-air Onsen bath. While Atam