Last Updated: Sep 24, 2024

Gero Onsen

One of Japan’s Top Three Hot Springs

This story was originally published on donnykimball.com and has been syndicated here on Medium.

A few weeks ago, while browsing the endless list of locales that I want to see in Japan, I realized that I had somehow managed to not feature Gero Onsen. Seeing as it is considered to be one of the top three hot spring towns in all of the country, my lack of coverage was simply not acceptable. After all, I had already covered Kusatsu Onsen and Arima Onsen so it was high time that I completed the trifecta. So, on that note, allow me to introduce Gifu Prefecture’s Gero Onsen, the third of Japan’s best hot spring towns.

According to local legends, Gero Onsen was initially discovered many years ago by accident. Supposedly, one day, an egret swooped down to the river that runs through where Gero Onsen now sits. Over the course of the following days, the majestic creature repeated this behavior time after time. Curious as to what was drawing the egret, the villagers living in the region set out to investigate. What they found shocked them. You see, the egret had actually been nursing its wounds in a hot spring that had recently emerged.

Oddly enough, the people living in the vicinity of Gero Onsen never found the egret that had led them to the hot spring. They did however uncover a stone statue of Yakushi Nyorai, the so-called “medicine Buddha.”…