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Digne-les-Bains – Thermal Spa in the French Alps

In France, going to a spa doesn’t always mean slipping into a fluffy robe for a massage and sipping a glass of cucumber water.

At the Thermes de Digne-les-Bains, a thermal spa in Haute-Provence in the South of France, people come to improve their health by taking the waters—for up to three weeks.

The French Spa Cure

Known as a cure thermale, the French thermal water cure is a long-established health tradition, and Digne-les-Bains has been known for its steamy water since Roman times.

The thermal baths specialize in treatments for rheumatological, respiratory and ENT (ear, nose and throat) conditions.

My non-medical interpretation? It’s good for aches and pains. Plus, breathing in the steam helps people who suffer from things like sore throats and bronchitis. (I’m not a doctor! This is not professional advice.)

Personally, I’m a sucker for a good thermal spa, so I signed my husband and me up for a six-day mini-cure—a feel-good way for a traveller to experience this very European approach to wellness.

A Spa Town Between Provence and the Alps

Where is Digne-les-Bains? It sits at the meeting point of Provence and the Alps, surrounded by rugged mountains and lavender country.

The landscape is sensational and dramatic, with the spa tucked into the Vallon des Eaux Chaudes beneath the craggy Saint-Pancrace cliffs.

Where to Stay and Spa

The thermal baths are about three kilometres from the centre of town in the Spa Zone. There’s not a lot to do there, which suited us just fine.

There are only two hotels in the Spa Zone, plus quite a few utilitarian vacation rentals.

Our options were either the 2-star Hotel de Richelme, which is connected to the spa building, or the 3-star Refuge des Sources, slightly less than 2 km away from the spa itself.

How to Choose Your Hotel

Normally, I would have stayed at the connected spa hotel (it makes getting to the spa in your robe so very easy!), and I preferred the old-world atmosphere there, but we were in Digne during a heat wave, so I chose the Refuge des Sources instead, because it had an outdoor swimming pool and we could get a room with a balcony.

Important to Note: Neither hotel has air conditioning!!!

Ideally, you wouldn’t organize a spa holiday chock-full of steaming treatments during a record-breaking heat wave, but my husband and I are not known for our timing, so there we were.

I asked the hotel receptionist for a second fan but got a ‘no’ in response.

About Digne-les-Bains

Digne is a town of about 20,000 with a compact historic centre, narrow streets, and a fair number of cafés and restaurants.

The capital of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department, it’s a world away from the high-glam resorts of the French Riviera, which are about 150 km (93 miles) to the south.

Sights

There are a few things to see in Digne-les-Bains, like the Cathédrale Saint-Jérôme or the very cool (especially in a heat wave) crypt at Notre Dame du Bourg Cathedral, but the town isn’t dripping with sights.

For me, the star attraction lay deeper underground … the thermal springs.

Digne’s mineral-rich water comes from the Ophélia borehole, some 870 metres below ground. Rich in minerals including sulphur and calcium, it emerges at temperatures reaching around 50°C.

Mini Cures

1-Day Explorer Cure

For a taste of a French thermal cure you can try an Explorer Cure, which is one morning. You don’t need a doctor’s note for this.

3 or 6-day Mini Cures

You can also choose a 6-day Mini Cure or a 3-day Mini Cure.

In order to do this, we needed a note from our doctor beforehand saying we were okay to do treatments with thermal water. We presented it when we checked in for our ‘cure’.

Our treatments took place in the morning, Monday to Saturday, and every day followed the same schedule.

Two Types of Programs

At Digne there are basically two types of mini cures: Rheumatology, which includes either the Move or Relax package; and Respiratory, which is the Oral package. We did Move. It doesn’t include massages like Relax, but has more water treatments.

The rheumatology cure is more fun (depending on your idea of fun) and more active. It involves thermal baths, underwater massage, immersion showers (where you lie down and get pelted with a shower of thermal water) and applications of mineral-rich thermal mud.

Respiratory treatments can include aerosols, nasal baths, gargling and inhalations. All kinds of fun stuff.

It’s decidedly more clinical than your average luxury spa—and that’s exactly the point.

Find out more on the Thermes Digne-les-Bains website.

The Spa Drill

Our mornings quickly settled into a routine. I asked for the latest start time possible because it was, after all, our holiday. (Possibly not Mark’s idea of a holiday, but a holiday nonetheless. And it wasn’t as bad as in Montecatini, where he abandoned his drinking water cure altogether. No spa stamina, that man.)

Thermal Pools

But back to Digne. The first treatment in the morning was a group session in the thermal pool, where underwater jets targeted different parts of our back and legs.

Vichy Shower

Next came the immersion shower. (You may know it as a Vichy shower.) This was not my favourite, meaning I didn’t like it at all. (Mark didn’t mind it, so who has the spa stamina now?) You lie on your stomach and thermal water rains down on you, and while I’m sure it has its devotees, I was happy to move on to mud. Glorious, healing mud.

Mud Treatments

Honestly, I loved it. The mud treatments here aren’t a dainty dab of spa mud in a neat plastic package. These involve a big bucket of hot mud that the therapist slathers over your body before wrapping you snugly in plastic.

Cocooned in hot mud, there’s nothing to do but lie still, try not to fidget and let the treatment do its work. Of all the treatments I tried, this was the one I looked forward to most.

Thermal Baths

Afterwards came a private thermal-water bath with jets, a toasty warm end to the morning.

Inhalations

I also added inhalation treatments, part of Digne’s long tradition of treating respiratory and ENT conditions. This is where you breathe in vapour from the water through a sort of tube. It’s pretty boring, but so is bronchitis. I rest my case.

The Spa

The therapists were excellent, friendly and helpful, and the spa was smoothly run. I got mixed up a lot as the spa building is large and I always seemed to be going the wrong way, but people were happy to try their English and point me in the right direction. (At least they seemed happy. They could have been cursing behind my back but I don’t think so.)

FYI: We were the only North Americans there.

Can You Do a Day Spa or Laze About in the Pools?

Yes. If the medical side of ‘thermalism’ isn’t what you’re after (and I have to admit, for most people it’s not), the adjoining Spa Thermal de Haute-Provence offers a more familiar wellness experience, with massages, body treatments, a sauna, a steam room and thermal-water pools of various temperatures.

The Spa Thermal is not a large water park like, say, Caracalla in swanky Baden-Baden, but it has both an indoor and an outdoor pool section, and a terrace with deck chairs where you can stare at the incredible mountains and congratulate yourself on doing absolutely nothing while knowing it’s good for your body and soul.