A Weekend Trip to Hakone
Recently my fiancé and I went to Hakone for a short weekend trip. I had never been to Hakone before and it was truly a magical experience and I can’t wait to go back again. My advice though is to really plan your trip because Hakone isn’t easy to travel around. There are buses but that price adds up. If you have the option of driving thats the best.
We started our stay there by checking into the onsen hotel and getting brunch. We had oyakodon at the only restaurant near our onsen. Make sure when booking your trip you check that. A lot of onsens make you reserve to eat there.
We had a lot of time before our room was ready so we walked about 15 minutes to a very fancy onsen. For $15 we got the entire onsen to ourselves for 2 hours and tea afterwards. I would recommend going to Hakone in the off season for this reason. We went in March, it was still cold and not warm but considered the off season.
When our room was finally ready we went to the onsen they had which was smaller then the other one we went to but it was also empty. This hotel was very peaceful and was hidden away in the woods. However, this made it harder to get places. We woke up early to use the onsen one more time before leaving early.
We took a bus to a cable car station near mount fuji to get to the Hakone Shrine. It was a lot harder to get to the shrine then we had thought and that also meant it cost us more money to get there. We had to pay for a a bus, a cable car, a boat ride and then another bus.
Hakone shrine is absolutely beautiful its up in the trees of the mountain. And down the stairs is one of the tori gates right on the lake. The lake around the shrine is beautiful and on a warm day I’m sure it would be great to walk around. Be prepared though sometimes the tori gates have construction like the one on the water.
At the shrine they have special good luck charms and other ways to tell your fortune. The turtle I got is for good luck and the paper is the second best good luck. Then we went and got lunch and ice cream near the shrine. Next time I would stay in this area because there are restaurants and food easily available.
