Hotel Blossom Kyoto
THE BLOSSOM KYOTO
Owned by the JR Group (yeap the stations), the Hotel Blossom “chain” of hotels are a great choice for those wishing for an affordable mid-luxurious range of hotel accommodation.
Their Kyoto property is beautifully decorated with works of Kyoto artisans, and contemporary art installations created with historical pieces made from kawara tiles, aiming to evoke and showcase the old days of Gojo (the old name of Kyoto)
I enjoyed my stay here so much, that when my parents visited Tokyo recently, I placed them in the Shinjuku station branch of The Blossom. They greatly enjoyed it in terms of location, newness, design, space etc (more on that another time)
The hotel is 2mins walk from Gojo station (1 stop from Kyoto station)
A RANGE OF ROOMS AVAILABLE TO FIT EVERYONE!
Being a larger hotel, Hotel Blossom is great for all numbers of travellers with the typical sized hotel rooms available for solo travellers, couples like double, king, twin in varying levels of “moderate, superior, deluxe” etc. (I placed my parents in a “superior/deluxe” double in the Shinjuku branch and they were more than happy)
Triple rooms are also available, some with an additional lovely tatami space. However their biggest room is the DELUXE QUAD ROOM with TATAMI SPACE (photos above) at 55sqm (sleeps max 4 guests) of which 8rooms are available, which is great for a family stay or large group of friends.
Typically with a lot of these family friendly sized hotel rooms, there are no separate bedrooms, you are sharing one huge “bedroom'“ space, so if you wish separate bedrooms and privacy, aparthotels like Mimaru Suites Kyoto Shijo may be more desirable.
THE PUBLIC BATHS
It’s been wonderful seeing more and more newer hotels in Japan incorporating large public baths for guests to enjoy, promoting Japan’s cultural love of bathing.
Located on the Basement floor, two calming public baths await, one male bath and one female bath.
Beautiful mosaic tile work adorn each wall of the baths, with sakura (cherry blossoms) for the female bath & takebayashi ( a bamboo forest) for the male bath.
Only available for hotel guests, please be aware that this is NOT an onsen.
KYOTO GOJO ONO
This time around, I had included a meal plan with my stay as I was swamped with work and didn’t want to have to research and wander around Gojo area trying to find food for myself.
What a wonderful surprise it was! Dinner was an absolute delight! A beautiful, delicious course fusing together local Japanese ingredients with the style of traditional Japanese & French cooking combined to create a wonderful marriage of seasonal flavours & tastes (photos below in random order)
In the end I skipped breakfast (was sleeping), and enjoyed my “light meal” ticket which was actually perfect as a light “brunch” time meal (the pasta, soup & bread photo below - top left corner) as it kept me going whilst I jumped on the shinkansen to get to my next destination.
WEB: THE BLOSSOM KYOTO | INSTAGRAM: @THE_BLOSSOM_KYOTO
