Hotel Route Inn Iida

It's a little far from downtown Iida City (?), but you can go to a yakiniku restaurant by car, and it's close to the interchange, so it's very convenient. Unfortunately, the famous yakiniku restaurant within walking distance was fully booked and we couldn't go in. I often use other Route Inns, but this one has a fairly large, clean bath, and they have a good selection of cosmetics, which was nice. This was probably the first Route Inn I've stayed in, and I stayed in a room near the entrance on the second floor. You can see the faces of guests coming in and out. That means you can see everything from here too. It didn't bother me much, though. It's not particularly good or bad, and considering the cost performance, it's definitely worth using.

It's about a 10-minute walk from the Igarashi Expressway bus stop. It's quite tough when it's raining. It's close to Iida Interchange, so it's perfect for using a car. The hotel itself is old, and I checked in the lobby once at night, but it had a dark overall impression. When I checked in, I had to ask several questions due to the lack of explanation from the staff. (I was told that I could use soft drink coins for free when I made a reservation on the website, but I didn't know where to use them, where the large public bath was located and how to use it, and that my room was in the West Wing. There was no explanation of where it was for 2 hours.) It would be nice if they explained it before I asked. The room is old, but it is clean and has many outlets, so it's easy to use. The toilet and bathroom are unit baths, so they are narrow and difficult to move around in, and when I turned around to use the sink, I hit my foot on the toilet paper holder. Everyone, please be careful. The bath is spacious and there is only an indoor bath. The breakfast was relatively warm, probably because it was early. The number of dishes was small, but it may be enough considering the cost of the accommodation.

I was coming from Takayama and headed to Kawaguchiko to see Mount Fuji and this seemed a good place to stop whilst also going on the Tenryu river boat trip (dull and not recommended!). It was on the outskirt of the town with free parking. The reception spoke no English but were friendly and gave me a message from the boat trip people. I think I was given a slightly larger room than normal. It had a single bed pushed against the wall but the rest of the room was relatively spacious by Japanese standards. The bathroom was in a kind of little cramped capsule which involved stepping up into it. The bed was hard and came with an eiderdown (I always find the cleanliness of those rather suspect) and sheets. The pillow had heavy seeds. I had a desk/dressing table, a chair and TV (but with no English TV channels). The breakfast didn't offer much of a western choice with just bread rolls. The wifi was good. I drove to a nearby restaurant for dinner. For the price paid it was pretty good value.