Katsuura Gyoen
A hot-spring ryokan hotel on Nachi Bay near the Kumano Kodo, formerly Katsuura Gyoen and since April 2024 Kamenoi Hotel Nachikatsuura.
- Neighbourhood
- Katsuura, Nachikatsuura, Wakayama
- Status
- Open
Why we recommend it
Readers looking for Katsuura Gyoen should know first that the name has gone: the house now operates as Kamenoi Hotel Nachikatsuura, part of the Kamenoi Hotels group of hot-spring hotels. What made it worth choosing is unchanged. It sits on the water in a working fishing port, has its own spring, and is one of the more comfortable places to sleep at the coastal end of the Kumano pilgrimage routes.
It suits walkers finishing or starting a stage at Nachi, and travellers who want sea, bathing and a serious fish dinner after days in the mountains. It is a large, traditional onsen hotel rather than a small design ryokan, and should be chosen on those terms. For the walk itself, see our piece on walking the Kumano Kodo and staying in mountain ryokan.
Rooms & Suites
Most of the 95 rooms look over the sea, and the hotel states that the majority have their own hot-spring bath. The upper categories are suites and corner suites with open-air baths and wide views of the bay; under the Katsuura Gyoen name these were sold as the “Ten” suites. Below them are twin and Japanese-style rooms with open-air baths, and standard Japanese, Japanese-Western and twin rooms.
The 2024 renovation converted some of the tatami rooms to Japanese-Western rooms with beds. Rooms on the bay side were given interiors on the theme of the Katsuura sea, and others have art walls recalling the cedars and camphor trees that line the approach to the Kumano shrines.
Dining
Dinner is kaiseki, centred on fresh, never-frozen tuna landed at Katsuura, the port with the largest catch of fresh tuna in Japan. The renewed dining room, which looks over Nachi Bay, offers tuna in successive courses, with spiny lobster, other local seafood, Kumano beef, wild boar and the vegetables and fruit of the region.
Design
The renovation that accompanied the change of name, completed in summer 2024, refitted the lobby lounge, the dining room and part of the guest rooms with references to the surrounding landscape. The lounge has a ceramic wall evoking Nachi Falls, a moss terrarium suggesting the forest floor of the Kumano Kodo, and lighting in a traditional tsunagi pattern, and it looks through the dining room to the bay.
Wellness & Spa
The baths are the main facility. The hotel has its own source, which yields about 200 litres of hot-spring water a minute, feeding the communal baths, a garden open-air bath overlooking the sea and the private baths attached to many rooms. Those interested in the forest side of the region will find background in our guide to forest bathing in Japan and where shinrin-yoku began.
Location
The hotel stands on the shore of Nachi Bay in Katsuura, about ten minutes on foot from JR Kii-Katsuura Station and from the fish market, where the morning tuna auction can be watched. Kumano Nachi Taisha, Seiganto-ji, Nachi Falls and the stone-paved Daimon-zaka slope are about 20 minutes away by car. Express trains take roughly 220 minutes from Osaka and 200 minutes from Ise, and Nanki-Shirahama Airport is about two hours away by bus.
The rail link to Ise makes it possible to combine the Kumano coast with a visit to Ise Jingu, beginning at the outer shrine, and with Amanemu, Aman’s hot-spring resort in Ise-Shima. The wider region is introduced on OKYTO’s Kumano destination page.
- Address
- 216-19 Katsuura, Nachikatsuura-cho, Higashimuro-gun, Wakayama, Japan
- Website
- Official website