Les Thermes de bagnoles

The establishment the catalogue lists as Les Thermes de Bagnoles trades today as b'o resort thermal and spa, and the company behind it is still registered as Thermes de Bagnoles de l'Orne; it stands at 5 avenue des Thermes in Bagnoles de l'Orne, in the Andaines forest of the Orne, about 230 kilometres from Paris, and describes itself as the only thermal station in the whole grand Nord-Ouest of France. Its water is unusual for a spa town in being neither hot nor strongly charged: remarkable in purity and aquamarine in colour, it rises at a steady 48 cubic metres an hour and at a constant 24.3 degrees, in every season. The operator calls it oligo-metallic - weakly mineralised but carrying copper as an anti-inflammatory, molybdenum, silicon for bone and cartilage, dissolved carbon dioxide as a skin vasodilator, and only small amounts of chlorides, sulphates, silicates, bicarbonate, sodium, magnesium, potassium, iron and calcium.

Three prescribed orientations are offered, and the third is what marks the place out: rheumatology and phlebology, as at most French spas, but also gynaecology, for hormonal imbalance, menopause complaints and chronic pelvic pain. A single orientation brings four treatments a day, a double orientation six. The house makes a point of running both a warm register of treatments for the rheumatology side and a cool one for phlebology, and it is a labelled training centre, entitled to award the French national vocational certificate for thermal attendants. Two clinical studies are cited: Thermes et Veines, which followed 425 patients with severe chronic venous disorders across the twelve phlebological spa towns this one belongs to, and the AFRETH knee-osteoarthritis trial of 2009 on 462 patients.

Beside the cure runs a spa of 2,000 square metres, laid out by the architect Emmanuel Houssin and built on an unusual pairing: the thermal water of Bagnoles with apple polyphenols, through an exclusive tie to Pomeol, the cosmetics house that coined pomotherapy. Every hydrotherapy treatment in the spa uses water drawn from the Grande Source of the thermal centre. Any a-la-carte treatment or package opens free access to a thermal-water vaporarium, a sauna, a relaxation room, a herbal-tea room, a walking corridor and a thermal-water pool. Seasons differ between the buildings: the standard thermal establishment runs from 2 March to 28 November 2026, with reception open every day from 9.00 to 12.30 and 13.30 to 18.00, while the premium establishment attached to the spa opens earlier, from 9 February, and closes on 7 November, and the spa itself is given as 7 February to 8 November. Two on-site residences, a four-star cottage residence with its own leisure pool and a three-star residence facing the treatment centre, complete the resort.