Recommend Onsen near Matsumoto?

Hi, we will be staying 2 nights in the Matsumoto area in early October and figure this would be a good time to have our first onsen experience. I see that both Asama onsen and Utsugushigahara onsen are nearby, does anyone have a recommendation for one versus the other.? Also, any recommendations as to specific places to stay would likewise be greatly appreciated.

Thanks alot,

Steve

Hello.
I recommend you ''Shirahone-
Onsen''. It's in the ''Awanoyu-
ryokan(Awanoyu hotel)''.
You just can enter the Onsen
as a visiter.(1 000yen)
It's one of popular Onsens.

http://www.awanoyu-ryokan.com/
awanoyu/english.html

Enjoy!!!

I have stayed in both Utsukushigahara and Asama onsen, for one night each, a couple of years ago. I stayed there to be near Matsumoto, not to visit either area as a destination...both towns are kind of suburbs of Matsumoto, and kind of shabby, it seemed to me. Asama was so quiet, but then, I was there in January, on my way back from Jigokudani and the 'monkey spa'. I stayed at Onoueyu, which is a very old ryokan. It met my budget restrictions, but it was very basic. We were fed a nice meal, which included raw horsemeat and bee larva (both specialties of the region), and the baths were fine if not pretty. I made that reservation through www.japaneseguesthouses.com.
In Utsukushigahara, I stayed at Enjyoh Bekkan, which is VERY basic, but very user-friendly. English spoken, plenty of parking, helpful info. It's closed at the moment for renovations - it says for ten months, starting Dec 2008. But you can correspond with them directly, in English, when they start taking reservations again:
http://www.mcci.or.jp/www/enjyoh/english.htm
The price is very reasonable. No bath, but apparently there is a public bath next door. Or nearby. Can you tell I didn't go to it?
Neither town is all that atmospheric, it seems to me, but time of year makes a difference, and there were more beautiful places to stay than either of the places I went to. If your goal is to be in Matsumoto then they would be the closest spa towns. West of Matsumoto there are onsens up in the mountains, which are destinations in themselves.

Thank you for the detailed info! We are mostly going to be in the area to see Matsumoto and so the onsen is more of an alternative to staying in a downtown hotel . I decided to go with Kikunoyu which looked pretty nice from the web site (I booked through Japaneseguesthouses). Shirahone great but may be a bit too far for us since we only really have one full day to see Matsumoto.

I don't have any recommendations - I am looking for assistance with this same question. We want to stay at an onsen rather than in the city area and will be there on 10 April 2008.

We're back from Japan and we enjoyed Kikonuyo very much. Its about a 10-15 minute taxi ride to Matsumoto which was fine for us. The food was excellent and the staff was very welcoming. If you have any specific questions please let me know. BTW, we booked through Japanese Guest Houses (as we did all of our trip), they are an outstanding resource!

Steve,

At Kikunoyu, were there any private baths that can be reserved? Were they indoor or outdoor?

Thanks!