Beitou Hot Springs

Beitou sits at the end of a short metro branch line in northern Taipei, and stepping out of the station into the smell of sulphur is a genuine surprise in a city of that size. The valley has been a bathing district since the Japanese colonial period, when the first public bathhouses were built, and the wooden and brick bathhouse of 1913 is now a museum you can walk through in slippers. Above the town, Thermal Valley is a pool of steaming, milky green, intensely acidic water that gives the area its old name of Hell Valley; you cannot bathe in it, and the boardwalk keeps you at a sensible distance. Bathing happens instead in the public open-air baths on the hillside, in Japanese-style ryokan, and in modern hotel spas, and the water here is unusual for containing radium.

What you actually see

• Thermal Valley - the steaming acidic green lake at the head of the valley, viewed from a boardwalk.
• Beitou Hot Spring Museum - the restored 1913 public bathhouse with its Roman-style tub.
• Millennium Hot Spring - the terraced public open-air baths, swimwear required.
• Beitou Library - a widely admired wooden eco-building in the park below.

When to go

October to March; soaking in a Taipei summer is punishing. Weekday afternoons are far calmer than weekends, when the public baths fill up. The baths run in timed sessions rather than continuously, so check the schedule.

Honest expectations

The public baths operate in fixed sessions with a full clear-out between them, require swimwear and a cap, and get crowded. Private hotel bathing is much more comfortable and much more expensive. Thermal Valley is a look-only site, which disappoints people who arrive expecting to get in. The sulphur smell settles into clothes.

Nearby

Yangmingshan National Park and its volcanic fumaroles rise directly above; Tamsui and its riverside sunset are a short ride away.