Thermes Foch

Thermes Foch stands at 44-46 Cours Marechal Foch, in the middle of Dax in the Landes, France's busiest spa town. It is one of three thermal establishments operated together as Les Bains de Dax, a group that took its present name in 2022 after trading as Groupe Thermal Dax Adour; the other two are Thermes Daxadour, which has its own residence facing the Adour, and Bains Saint-Pierre, founded in 1854. The building is entirely on one level, so every treatment room is reached without stairs, and the operator makes a point of the modest scale: this is a working cure house for prescribed courses of treatment rather than a leisure bath.

The Dax water is naturally hot and hyperthermal, and the operator gives its composition as calcium sulphate at 390 mg/l, sodium chloride at 234 mg/l and magnesium sulphate at 126 mg/l. It is delivered at different temperatures depending on the prescription: deep baths at 33 to 34 degrees for rheumatology, and 27 to 28 degrees for phlebology, where cooler water is used to push circulation in the legs. Alongside the water comes the peloide de Dax, a mud made of Adour silt, thermal water and a blue micro-alga that the operator says grows nowhere else. A standard reimbursed course includes 18 mud applications, each of them 15 minutes of treatment, applied warm by hand to the painful joints and used once per patient.

Foch treats rheumatology, phlebology and fibromyalgia, offers combined double-orientation courses, and sells shorter mini-cures for visitors without a three-week prescription. Physiotherapy massages are given on site. The house works to a season rather than year-round: in 2026 it runs from Monday 2 March to Saturday 28 November, with the last arrival on 9 November. Accommodation is handled separately through the group's own residences nearby.