At Kusatsu Station, the platforms handle a volume of commuters that speaks to the city's role as a staging point between Kyoto and Osaka — the new fast service reaches Kyoto in roughly twenty minutes. Yet Kusatsu itself is not merely a corridor. The old post-town logic still organizes something in the street grid: this was where the Tōkaidō and Nakasendō diverged, and daimyo processions, imperial messengers, and the Akō rōnin all passed through what is now the Kusatsu-juku Honjin, the largest surviving honjin of its kind, still standing near the station.
The lake is never far.琵琶湖's eastern shore defines the city's western edge, and on the Karasuma Peninsula — the same flat spit of land that hosts the Inazuma Rock Festival each year — the Shiga Prefectural Lake Biwa Museum sits facing the water. Inside, the focus is the lake itself: its endemic species, its long geological memory. Nearby, the water garden at Mizunomori displays water lilies in numbers that suggest obsession rather than decoration. Ubagamochi, the sweet rice cake associated with the old post road, is still sold in the city, a confection that carries its origin story lightly.
Kusatsu's contemporary texture is shaped by the universities and manufacturing plants that settled here — names like Panasonic and Omron appear on factory signage along the flat industrial corridors. South Kusatsu Station, opened in the 1990s, anchors a newer district with its own rhythm, younger and less encrusted with history. The two stations coexist without much friction, each serving a different layer of the same city.
Where to stay
A day is rarely enough.
Booking through these links supports AURA at no extra cost to you.
What converges here
2 in this city. 100 within 25 km of the city hall.
- Kusatsu-Juku Honjin
- Lake Biwa Museum
- Rittō History Museum
- Shiga Museum of Art
- Ōtsu City Science Museum
See the nearest 25
- Zeze-yaki Museum
- Museum of Shiga Prefecture Biwako-Bunkakan
- Ishibe Historical Museum
- Biwako Bunkakan Museum
- Ōtsu-e Art Museum
- Otsu City Museum of History
- Yasu City History and Folk Museum
- Sagawa Art Museum
- Kinoshita Museum of Art
- Miho Museum
- Daigo-ji Reihōkan
- Nomura Art Museum
- Hakusasonsō
- Sen-oku Hakuko Kan
- Kyoto University of Art and Design Gallery
- Lake Biwa Canal Museum
- Murin-an
- National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
- Ryozen Museum of History
- Mirei Shigemori Garden Museum
- Namikawa Cloisonné Museum of Kyoto
- Maruyama Park
- Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum
- Hosomi Museum
- Shō Museum
Distances are straight-line from the municipal office. Each website was checked in September 2026. Some locations © OpenStreetMap contributors.
- Ashiura Kannon-ji Temple Ruins
- Kusatsu-juku Honjin
- Shina Shrine Main Hall
- Ishizu-dera Hondo
- Kannon-ji Amidado
- Oisugi Shrine Main Hall
- Isasago Jinja Shrine Honden
- Shingu Shrine Main Hall
- Murachizaki Shrine Front Gate
- Kannon-ji Temple Shoin
- Biwako
- Kusatsu
- Minami-Kusatsu
- Kusatsu