Name: Momoyama
Address: 142 Utsukushigahara Onsen Omura Matsumoto City Nag, Matsumoto, Matsumoto, Matsumoto, 390-0304, Japan
Rating: 5

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Matsumoto Airport

Momoyama

Matsumoto

We stayed in this traditional hotel in September 2018 for one night. Also the hotel has experienced better days, it is located within a wonderful garden with an exquisite view on Matsumoto. We had a traditional Japanese dinner which was one of the best on our whole journey through Japan. Although the cleanings of the hotel was discussed within other reviews on Trip Advisor we could not confirm those shortcomings. It would however be good, if the hotel would be repainted. If you would like to get to the city you should contact the hotel staff and they will drive you to the city.
Altogether a very nice traditional Japanese experience!

Extremely friend service and a wonderful garden

It saddens me to write this review, as the place has such potential and the owners are so nice. Usually, I refrain from writing reviews that may harm good people, but this case is so acute that I feel obliged to warn fellow travellers from the inevitable disappointment they will face, not to mention the potential health hazard.

We arrived at the ryokan by taxi (¥2300 from Matsumoto station) as no public transport is available, and were welcomed by the landlady who hardly spoke any English. She ushered us to the lounge, served us Japanese tea, asked us to wait and closed the doors behind us. The tea had a sickening smell of eggs. It was so pungent you smelt it from a metre away. I doubt this was some kind of egg-based tea I am unfamiliar with; more likely they simply didn’t wash the cups well enough from previous content, or used a sponge that stank of eggs. Our concerns around hygiene were later reinforced when my wife went to look for mineral water bottles** more than two hours after the other guests have finished their dinner and saw all the dishes and food leftovers still on the lounge tables. The same held true for the breakfast dishes and buffet, which lay around for at least an hour after all guests have finished (possibly much longer, we left at this point). Needless to say we didn’t dare to touch any of it except for the bread.
** BTW, there was no vending machine with water bottles, in the only place in Japan where we wished there was one..

After a 20-minute curfew in the lounge (later we realised the lady was waiting for her English speaking husband to arrive and check us in) we asked to go outside for a walk in the garden before it turned dark. The extensive garden was symbolic of the entire venue. You could see the huge potential of what was probably a gorgeous garden in the past, but in its current state of maintenance it was a melancholic experience. Vegetation had grown and dried all over the walking paths. The garden sheds were downright dilapidated, the shutters rusty and falling apart, and the wooden fences rotten. The view of the mountain side and city was OK, but frankly we were disappointed as we had higher expectations from a hotel in this location.

The bright spot was the room, which was spacious and had comfortable futon mattresses. It was just clean enough (not on par with the standard we encountered in most places in Japan though) and had A/C that albeit noisy kept us warm.

Then we went to the onsen (public bath), which was the main reason for choosing this hotel in the first place. Now it may be my misunderstanding, but based on my past experience with onsens I assumed the water is going to be hot springs water. Here it was plain water. The only minerals in it were the dirt accumulated at the bottom near the edges of the bath. The pump is clearly not doing a great job. The wooden rim of the bath is completely rotten. Outside the men’s onsen are sofas for you to enjoy the view of the decorative pool at the centre of the hotel. It is empty, filthy, and proudly displays the plastic piping..

To conclude, this place is a poor shadow of what I presume it had been when it opened up. In its current state of maintenance, it is unworthy of accepting guests.

Momoyama

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