Rain falls like handfuls of pebbles being softly scattered on the roof as I lie in bed. I’m wrapped in warmth not only from my cozy duvet but an earlier dram of tangy bodaimoto sake, a brew whose origins trace back to 15th-century monks at Shoryaku Temple on nearby Mount Bodai, the birthplace of sake.
This is Cofunia, an inn located in Tenri, Nara Prefecture, along the Yamanobe-no-Michi, a trail known as Japan’s oldest walking path and mentioned in Japan’s eighth-century “Kojiki” and “Nihon Shoki” chronicles. Due to its location just up the road from Asuka, an ancient capital predating Nara and Kyoto, Cofunia sits adjacent to — and takes inspiration from — the area’s keyhole-shaped kofun (burial mounds). The sixth-century Nishiyamazuka kofun even abuts its southwest walls.
More than 160,000 such kofun can be found across Japan, but few allow visitors to lay their heads down for the night so close by.
A stay at Cofunia invites travelers to experience life much as people from Japan’s past once did. Each of its four rooms (from ¥18,000 per night with dinner and breakfast included) is themed on the Chinese geomantic principles of feng shui — in vogue during Japan’s ancient era — and the inn’s lush gardens are brimming with medicinal plants and herbs used in its kitchen.
I am staying in the tsuchi (earth) room, which is built around a staircase crafted from the earth and mud excavated during the inn’s construction. The room’s touches include a moody ambience enhanced by a digital clock casting a soft pink glow across its cavernous space and, in the bathroom, a keyhole-shaped bathtub — one of many kofun-inspired items dotting the premises, to a degree that spotting them becomes a kind of treasure hunt.
The next morning at breakfast, I notice another keyhole in the form of a ramekin-style serving dish, inside of which sits a square of shio-kōji (salted rice malt) tofu, elegantly crisscrossed with two pink strands of pickled daikon. On the same plate is an assortment of fermented dishes, including crisp yams, a small pile of complexly pungent Nara-zuke (pickles featuring sake lees traditional to the region) and kuro-kōji amazake (a sweet sake made with the same black kōji mold used to produce awamori, Okinawa’s indigenous spirit). This comes topped with a tart slice of hassaku, a pomelo-mandarin hybrid, plucked from the inn’s surrounding trees.
First opened in spring 2025, Cofunia is the creation of Chisato Maeda, 44, originally from the town of Seika in neighboring Kyoto Prefecture. She bought the structure as an akiya (abandoned property) and renovated it as part of her ongoing work to foster a community gathering space for those interested in organic agriculture and related lifestyles, including self-care that does not rely on mainstream medicine.
“I am an ethnobotanist, although that is not really a word that translates easily into Japanese,” she says.
Maeda developed her interests while studying agriculture in the Netherlands for her graduate degree. After returning to Japan, she worked in Kyoto’s Tango Peninsula, coordinating workshops on traditional rural wisdom and leading “off-the-eaten-path” food experiences for travelers before relocating to Nara for what she felt was a slower pace of life.
Developing Cofunia together with her team of designers, chefs, gardeners and her co-founder, Takumi Takano — whom she describes as a “kofun maniac” — Maeda crafts the inn’s teas, syrups, herbal bath concoctions and incense. She also offers guests a variety of workshops in both Japanese and English.
That holistic approach is palpable throughout the property. Inspired by Cofunia’s concept and satiated by its healing foods and peaceful atmosphere, I take one last look at the surrounding vista from atop the inn’s kofun before stopping to chat with Hiromi Yuuki, who curates Cofunia’s gardens. She shows me one that’s keyhole-shaped and another whose seasonal bounty is held in place by strategically placed kawara (roof tiles) unearthed during the inn’s construction.
For visitors with time to stretch their legs on the Yamanobe-no-Michi trail, there’s more to see than the area’s kofun. Alongside plentiful yakisugi (charred cedarwood) architecture, there are fruiting persimmon groves in late summer, and golden canola flowers and cherry blossoms in full bloom around torii gates in spring. The area is also home to Isonokami Shrine, one of Japan’s oldest centers of Shinto worship and the location of the Shichishito, a ceremonial seven-branched sword gifted to the ruler of ancient Japan by the Korean Baekje kingdom.
The sword is not available for public viewing, but visitors can purchase a seven-pronged amulet to take home as I did — a reminder of the history that Cofunia sits amid.
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