Shirabu, "white cloth", probably received its name from the vast blanket of snow that wraps up the entire valley in winter, as by February, there's often over 2 meters of the stuff. The locals, though, have an even more poetic legend: a hunter discovered a wounded white-flecked eagle and nursed it back to health with the spring's curative water, and then dubbed the spring Shirabuchi Takayu (白斑鷹湯), "White-Flecked Eagle Spring", this being then shortened into today's name.
Legends aside, it's known for a fact that the hot spring here was discovered back in 1312 by a warrior named Sato Muneyoshi, who applied for his feudal lord's permission to open a spring here. Even seven hundred years later, the village remained so small that the original inns didn't even have real names, instead going by "west", "center" and "east" depending on which side of the road they're on!
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Shirabu Onsen
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Shirabu Onsen - updated May 2024
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Shirabu Onsen Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
