Nara is one of the best places I’ve visited in Japan and I wish I could spend more than one day there. Because I’d never been to Nara before, I chose a hotel that was extremely easy to find – the Super Hotel Lohas JR Nara Eki. Eki means station in Japanese and the hotel is located just a one-minute walk from the East Exit of JR Nara Station.
Lohas hotel is modern and quite new. Like most Japanese hotels it has an elegant and rather neutral interior and room decor though the color palette recalls Japanese traditional interiors.
Rooms are more spacious compared to Tokyo accommodations and offer nice views from windows. Each room has an air conditioner (which is also a heater in cold months), free WiFi, a flat screen TV, an electric kettle with tea bags, yukata (a kind of robe) and slippers. In Japan there is a tradition of leaving street shoes at the doorstep or entrance of your hotel room.
Each room has a private bathroom, but also there is a natural hot spring bath that guests of the Lohas hotel use for free (each gender has separate baths, of course). After a whole day out it’s a pleasure to soak in the hot spring bath. That’s why I always look for hotels that offer hot spring baths. In the Super Hotel Lohas JR Nara Eki the bath was beautifully decorated and wonderful!
Lohas hotel offers a buffet breakfast that can be included in the room’s price. Breakfast is served from 6:30 to 9:00 am, but lunch and dinner are not available in the hotel. That’s fine because there are few restaurants around.
Nara is not a big town and can be explored on foot. Nara Park can be reached in 20 minutes’ on foot from the hotel and famous Todai-ji Temple is a 35 minute walk away. As I’ve mentioned, one day is not enough for exploring Nara with its numerous temples, traditional Japanese gardens and cute deer that live in the town!
From Nara Station you can reach Fushimi Inari Taisha in 30 minutes by train on the JR Nara Line. That place is also worth a whole day trip.
