Let's Go Play a Day in Beitou: Heritage Architecture, Hot Springs & Museums, Sulfur Pits, Mountain Beauty

TEXT　Rick Charette

PHOTOS　VISION

The Beitou hot-spring resort area, developed by the Japanese starting back in the 1890s when they ruled Taiwan, sits at the Yangmingshan massif's base in the city's northwest. Start your day tour at MRT Xinbeitou Station, hopping on a S39 bus, which whisks you to all the attractions rolled out below. The buses run Fri-Sun, coming every 30min or so.

Xinbeitou Historic Station

You've arrived! But don't jump on that bus just yet! Right beside today's metro station is yesteryear's railway station, which stood at the terminus of a Japanese line built to bring folk from the city center to the hot-spring resort. This fetching wood-frame heritage building opened in 1916.

Most ostentatious are its ox-eye windows in the steeply sloped roof, added in a 1937 expansion. Awaiting you inside are displays on the station's construction, short period films and photos, and a gift shop area with railway themed collectibles. The old-world original ticket windows remain in place, one now serving as the gift shop sales counter.

Beitou Hot Spring Museum

Now, all aboard (unless you want to walk to the museum, which is just 6min)! The S39, that is, which embarks from right beside the metro station's Exit 1. You head up a narrow, gentle-slope valley carved by a hot-spring stream, the main resort area, then jump up to the valley's top and into the high-hill terrain beyond.

First stop, Beitou Hot Spring Museum (hotspringmuseum.taipei), a Tudor-style mansion-look property built by the Japanese in 1913 as Taiwan's first public bathhouse – East Asia's largest. Inside the museum, you can see exhibits on the history and culture of the Beitou hot-spring area, as well as features like the former bath and tatami rooms.

Thermal Valley

On to the next bus stop to visit Thermal Valley (or a short, easy walk from the hotspring museum; 8min). This is a small nature park in a high-walled, very humid depression right off the main valley, filled up with a shallow, bubbling, turquoise-hue lake pumping out sulfurous steam. A wide pathway takes you around the lake, one of our world's two green sulfur hot springs.

A new attraction is the "streamside meditation area." While sitting on the long stone benches lining the sides of the depression's gurgling narrow exit channel, you can feel the heat from the hot springs, giving you a soothing sauna-like experience.

Brae Café

Time for a bite and a beverage! Between Thermal Valley and your bus stop is the cozy wood-façade, cottage-style Brae Café, tucked up against the main-valley hillside – its Chinese name translates directly as "beside the brae." Outdoor porch seating looks directly down through the valley and what fills it up, leafy Beitou Park.

Choose from premium coffees and other liquid fare such as fruit smoothies, sweet treats such as cinnamon rolls and affogato, and simple foods such as quiche and Chinese dumplings.

Brae Café 山邊咖啡

🚩110-1, Wenquan Rd., Beitou Dist.

📞(02) 2893-9325

🔗facebook.com/BraeCafe

🕝Mon, Thur-Sun 11:00am-6:00pm

Beitou Museum

Onward, upward! A short hop now up narrow roads to the valley's top and the Beitou Museum (beitoumuseum.org.tw), overlooking our justvisited area.

This impressively restored complex of buildings of Chinese Tang Dynasty design, dating to 1921, is among Taiwan's largest examples of Japanese wood-built architecture. Originally home of the famed Kazan Hotel, long Taiwan's premier hot-spring inn, during WWII it did duty as an imperial officers' club and, famously, entertained kamikaze pilots before their big days. The museum stages exhibits with Beitou history, Taiwan's folkways, and indigenous peoples as foci, and offers a tea ceremony experience and restaurant serving Kaiseki vegetarian fare.

Marshal Zen Garden

Right next door to the museum, the Marshal Zen Garden (sgarden.com.tw) is another esteemed heritage complex of Japanese-built architecture, here done in classical Japanese style.

It has had a storied history: life started as an upscale hot-spring inn in 1920, during WWII it was used by the Japanese army as a place of comfort for Kamikaze special forces before their missions, and afterwards it was long a house arrest abode for Marshal Zhang Xueliang. Today, the enclave is home to an upscale Marshal-themed restaurant and small museum, teahouse, and hot-spring soaking facilities.

Sulfur Valley

The S39's penultimate stop is by the bottom of Sulfur Valley, a massive open scar-like pit on the Earth's face percolating with an otherworldly spectacle of steam vents and boiling hot-spring pools with an unnatural turquoise color, rich-yellow sulfur deposits, and high bare-rock walls.

A well-maintained pathway with some steep sections takes you through the valley from the bottom parking lot to the roadway at the top (just east of the last bus stop). You'll see a cacophony of pipes leading from the pools, delivering liquid gold to the resort-area facilities down below. Attractive foot-soak facilities are found near the parking lot.

Taipei Hot Springs Season 臺北溫泉季

This annual festival (Nov 1-4 in 2025) features a diverse program of cultural performances and experiences, exhibits, and charity initiatives with hot springs/Beitou themes, including "witches singing concerts" ("Beitou" is a bastardization of the original indigenous name, meaning witches/sorceresses). Preferential accommodation/dining/ bathing deals are also available.