Gora Kumo, Hakone

We rode the little switchback train up through the cedars to Gora, where the air turns cool and faintly sulphurous and the mountains close in on every side. Gora Kumo is built into the slope itself, a low cascade of dark timber and glass that seems to grow out of the hillside, so discreet from the lane that we walked past it once. Inside, the lobby opened onto a wall of forest, mist curling between the trunks, and the sound of water everywhere. A host swapped our shoes for slippers, pressed a warm towel and a cup of plum cordial into our hands, and led us down to our room as cloud drifted past the windows like slow smoke.

The room

Our room was the reason one comes to Hakone. A tatami-and-timber living space gave onto a private terrace where an open-air bath, hewn from a single block of cypress, steamed gently with volcanic mineral water piped straight from the source. We could soak naked under the open sky at any hour, the forested valley falling away below, no neighbour in sight, only mist and birdsong and the occasional far-off train. Indoors, low furniture in pale wood, a bed dressed in heavy cotton, and floor-to-ceiling glass kept the mountain always present. The mineral water left our skin soft for hours. We bathed at dawn, at dusk, and once at two in the morning under a scatter of stars.

To sink into your own cypress bath at dawn, mist sliding through the cedars below, is to remember why the Japanese have revered these mountains for a thousand years.The Suite Edit

Service & food

Service is in the grand ryokan tradition, anticipatory to the point of telepathy, yet warm rather than formal. Dinner is the crescendo: a kaiseki of perhaps ten courses served in our room and in the intimate dining room, each plate a small landscape of the season, sashimi of startling freshness, a clear seasonal broth, wagyu seared on a hot stone, all paced with the calm of ritual. The resident chef sources from the surrounding Kanagawa farms and the nearby coast, and the sake list is thoughtful and deep. Breakfast, an equally considered Japanese spread, arrives just as the morning mist begins to burn off the valley.

The verdict

Gora Kumo is for the traveller seeking restoration above all, for honeymooners, for the city-frazzled in need of silence, hot water and superlative food, and willing to pay handsomely for them. It rewards stillness; bring books, not an itinerary. The one honest caveat: this is a deliberately remote, contemplative retreat with only ten rooms and a single dining room, so those craving nightlife, shopping or a buzzy crowd should look elsewhere, and the steep hillside setting involves a few stairs. Come to do almost nothing, beautifully, and you will leave feeling years younger.