Baien-no-Sato & Miura Baien Museum

Baien-no-Sato is a small, onsen hot spring resort atop a hill in the centre of the Kunisaki Peninsula. It also has the additional and very unusual attraction for a hotel of a 65cm reflecting telescope used for star gazing into our Universe and far beyond into deep space.

The skies above Kunisaki suffer little from man-made light pollution making it an ideal position to locate such a complex and expensive piece of equipment. However, it was also placed here to celebrate Miura Baien,  local son and famed in Edo Period Japan (1603-1868) as a philosopher, economist, scientist and astronomer. The Muira Baien Museum, found close by to Baien-no-Sato in the valley below, retains his family home, a traditional thatched house, and archive.