Mashita

Mashita lies among the mountains of southern Hida, along the river valley at Gero. Hot springs rise here, attracting bathers to a settlement known in older writings as Yushima. The poet Banri Shūku praised its waters in 1491 alongside those of Arima and Kusatsu. In the Edo period the scholar Hayashi Razan likewise named these three among Japan's most celebrated springs, giving the mountain baths a reputation far beyond Hida.