Atarashiya

We stayed here for 6 nights in January 2015 to go skiing. We actually had the whole place to ourselves for the first 4 nights then it got quite busy on the weekend (it was a public holiday). Good points: Breakfast was delicious although some might find it confronting as it alternated between western and Japanese and there was no choice. On Japanese days we were usually served miso, rice, vegetables and fish and in the Japanese style it was cooked but lukewarm. Once I convinced myself/pretended that it was lunchtime I found it delicious and very filling. Our host made lots of efforts to make our stay comfortable and gave little tips about things on in the town, left fruit, tea and biscuits in our room and at the end of our stay gave us a lovely little gift. The room (2nd floor at the front - Rm201) was quite large and the futon beds comfortable. The location is straight across the road from one of the free onsens and is not far from the main restaurants in town. It was also an easy 8min walk to the moving walkway to get up to the Hikage gondola (the Nagasaka gondola is closer but the ski school and our hire place were at Hikage). Bad points: Smoking is permitted in all the common areas, exiting our room into a cloud of smoke was pretty awful. The pillows are traditional rice husk ones and were too firm for me, I used my travel pillow. The boiler was broken for the first few days of our stay but we just used the free public onsen across the road. Once it was fixed the bath was good. The bathrooms are shared and are pretty basic but clean. Overall we really enjoyed our stay however if there had been smokers there the whole time I might have felt otherwise. If smoking doesn't bother you and you are easy going about what you get for breakfast then I would definitely recommend Atarashiya as a homely welcoming place to stay in Nozawa Onsen.