Crab dish served at the Masuya Ryokan. Crab is a winter specialty from the Sea of Japan.

In nearby Omori, the local people have carefully preserved or reconstructed many buildings over the last 50 years. I slipped back four centuries in time, walking past temples and shrines, and buildings that were once samurai houses, rich merchants’ shops, and the local government office. Roofs covered in red, locally made sekishu-gawara tiles create a townscape unlike any other. You can visit the old homestead of the richest merchant family, the Kumagai—the building has an ornate interior décor and furnishings, recalling Ginzan’s silver age.

Any town today needs modern services like a bank and a post office, and these too are in Omori, but housed behind facades that blend into the atmosphere of the past. The interiors of some old houses have been remodeled as cafes or stores, waiting for you to have a meal, buy a souvenir, or just admire as you stroll by.

The next day, I took the old Ginzan Road to Yunotsu Spa near the coast. The hot springs have been enjoyed without a break for the last 1,300 years. Murky brown water pours steaming into the hot baths, bringing with it plenty of iron and salt. Soak in it, and the heat will penetrate to your bones and give you a good sweat, even in winter.

The spa is close to what was once a major port, where ships delivered supplies for the mine and picked up silver. Thanks to the old architectural style, Yunotsu is a charmingly rustic hot spring resort.

The Japanese inn where I stayed, the Masu-ya, has been in business since the early 1900s. Before then the building was owned by a wholesale merchant, a middleman for a marine transport company. The cuisine at the inn is traditional and in season. In December, that meant a feast from the sea: crab as the main dish, plus raw sashimi pieces of fish, grilled sea bream sprinkled with salt, and a clear soup with clams. And the drink was Kaishun, a sake brewed locally. It had a refreshing bite and a crisp flavor, and brought to my mind generations of miners enjoying their sake after a day carrying heavy loads of silver ore.

A street in Omori still lined with old buildings.

Tomogaura Bay. Silver was shipped from here to different parts of the world in the mine’s early days.