Thermes de Salins

The establishment stands on Place Barbarine in Salins-les-Bains, a Jura salt town whose brine was worked long before it was bathed in, and the operator dates continuous thermal use of the site to 1854. The building is single-storey, about 2,800 square metres, with bay windows onto the wooded slopes and the pink roofs of the old town. The treatment water comes from the Puits des Cordeliers, drawn from close to 150 metres down: a sodium chloride water, heavily concentrated in salt and carrying potassium, magnesium and calcium, which the operator credits with an antalgic and remineralising effect on osteoarthritis, tendinitis and the after-effects of joint trauma. The springs surface at 18 °C with a pH of 6.15, so the water is warmed for use. A second and less salty well, the Puits à Muire, feeds the pools of the relaxation area.

That relaxation area is the part open without a prescription. Its centrepiece is a thermo-ludic pool of nearly 200 square metres, advertised at 32 °C, fitted with eight massage jets, a counter-current swim lane, two massage benches and a jacuzzi, and opening onto a terrace facing the Fort Saint-André. The heat circuit runs to two saunas, one held at 75 °C and the other at 85 °C, a hammam at 45 °C and a caldarium at 36 °C, with a rest room, nine shower cabins and electronically locking lockers controlled by a wristband. Entry is not bookable and is capped at 180 people at a time; children under 12 are not admitted at all, and the sauna, hammam and caldarium zone is reserved for over-18s. Aquagym sessions are held in the pool in two short morning slots, during which the heat rooms stay open to anyone not taking part.

The medical side runs 18-day cures accredited for rheumatology, with roughly two hours of treatment a day from Monday to Saturday, public holidays included. The equipment list is set out room by room: twelve mud application cabins, twelve aerobath and hydrobath tubs, six cabins for massage under a saline water ramp, seven dry-massage and beauty cabins, four Berthollet steam boxes, six hand and foot bath stations, three jet showers, a twelve-place mobilisation pool and a twelve-place immersion bath-shower pool. Cure treatments are given from 6:30 to 12:00 Monday to Saturday; the relaxation area opens from 14:30 to 18:30 Monday to Saturday and on Sunday from 9:30 to 11:45 and again from 14:00 to 17:30, with a wheelchair available for transfers inside the building.