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, and it receives more than 2,000 cure patients a year. 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 a Muyre, 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-Andre. 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 Berthollaix 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.