The town of Kotohira has long known how to receive strangers. For centuries, pilgrims made their way here along the old approach to Kotohira-gū, climbing the stone steps toward the shrine that drew the faithful from across the country. The inns and teahouses that grew up along that route learned the particular rhythm of hospitality that comes from tending to people mid-journey — tired, hopeful, carrying something they could not quite name. That rhythm has not entirely left the place. Even now, walking the precincts near the Kanamura River, one senses a town shaped by the habit of welcome.

The waters themselves arrived late, by local standards. Drilling began in 1997, and what emerged was a sodium-calcium chloride spring — warm, mineral-rich, the kind that sits on the skin with a quiet weight. A second source followed in 2007. The twelve inns that now define Konpira Onsen gathered around these springs gradually, and the place carries that gradualism in its texture: nothing feels imposed. Kōbaiteì, one of the inns that holds its own source, offers a sense of what several nights here might mean — days arranged loosely around the bath, the appetite, the slow walk toward the shrine and back.

To stay more than a night is to feel the layering of the town's purposes. The pilgrim traffic continues, though it mingles now with the quieter movement of those who came simply for the water. The festival that the onsen holds each year adds another fold. Kotohira is not a place that declares itself; it accumulates, gently, and asks only that you slow down enough to notice.