Etablissement Thermal

Aulus-les-Bains sits at 780 metres in the Garbet valley of the Couserans, inside the Pyrenees Ariegeoises regional park, south of Saint-Girons. The spa and the neighbouring Residence des 3 Cesars form a single operation: thirty-one apartments sleeping two to eight people are linked to the thermal centre by a footbridge, so most guests walk to treatment without going outdoors. The season is short and fixed by the calendar rather than the weather, running from late March to the first week of November.

Four mineral springs feed the house. Darmagnac, Bacque, Trois Cesars and the later Source Nouvelle are sulphated, calcic and magnesian, emerge cold at 12 to 16 degrees and carry an average of two grams of dry residue per litre. Because the water is cold at source it is warmed for treatment: baths, aerated baths, underwater-jet baths and programmable hydromassage baths are given at 35 to 37 degrees, alongside a family of showers - the penetrating seated shower particular to Aulus, the six-nozzle ramp shower, the three-column cabinet shower and the hand-directed jet shower that traditionally closes the morning. Mud packs and massage under running thermal water complete the list. A standard course is eighteen mornings of treatment with twice-daily drinking cures, prescribed for rheumatology, metabolic disorders including type II diabetes and raised cholesterol, and for kidney and urinary conditions.

Non-patients and accompanying guests use the Aquadetente area, a single pool heated to between 29 and 31 degrees with a hammam, a jacuzzi, massage jets and swan-neck spouts, open from mid-afternoon on most days and closed on Sundays. Aquagym and aquabike sessions are booked separately, and the spa runs dietetics workshops, cardio-training, yoga and guided mountain walks around the cure. The site is old: bathing at Aulus is documented from 1824, when a plank hut sheltered a single wooden tub, the springs were recaptured and the present drinking pavilions built in 1873, and Roman coins were dug out of the Darmagnac catchment during the nineteenth-century works.