Nezame Hotel

Wow wow wow. We had an amazing stay at Nezame hotel. I must admit I was a bit nervous after our previous “Ryokan” hotel was such a let down, but the Nezame hotel restored our faith in old style Japanese country hospitality. All the staff were extremely helpful and the gentleman at the desk even went through all the local places to visit in the area. It’s not flashy, it’s not AAA rated luxury, but what it does do, it does very well. The rooms are spacious, clean and comfy. The public areas are quaint and clean. The dining room is comfortable. BUT the biggest thing this hotel has going for it is the food! OMG, so delicious and so much of it. I’m not sure if you can book a room without the breakfast and dinner service, but I would definitely not recommend missing out on a spread of delicious home style Japanese food. If you are not a fan of Japanese cuisine (fish for breakfast for example might be strange for some people) then maybe it’s not for you. I did see an older US couple come in for breakfast on their first day and balk at the breakfast laid out on their table. They had a cup of coffee and left. Each day at breakfast and dinner you come into the dining room and your table has a feast presented in kaiseki style and they bring further dishes out as you eat. Brilliant. I hear the onsen is also very good, but I had a stupid cold during my stay and it would have been very poor etiquette to go to the baths in that state and infect everyone. I would also recommend driving here and not relying on public transport. Nezame is in a small village with limited access to other attractions so having a vehicle is a must have in my opinion. A great stay!

The towels were very overly perfumed. We think they used too much softener to make them “fluffy”. However, this also results in the towel not absorbing water very well, so the towel just smears the water over your body and doesn’t dry your skin. There’s always room for improvement!

Comfortable room. Good basic place to stay if you are walking the nakasendo. 711 very close by

You can’t have dinner unless you book in advance which they did not tell us. So we had to eat from 711. Breakfast was nice so i would recommend trying the dinner, but you need to contact them ahead of time. We did try the day before in a booking message but got no response so might need to try earlier, or via email perhaps?

The bath was fantastic! The rooms were clean, it had everything you need.

It all looked a bit dated. I woudnt recommend it for multiple days. For one night it was good.

The Breakfast & Dinner

The property appears to date from the 1970s–1980s and has a noticeably dated, old-fashioned feel. It would benefit from comprehensive modernisation throughout, with particular attention to updating the rooms to create a more contemporary and appealing living space.