Bains des Escaldes (Villeneuve-des-Escaldes)

Angoustrine-Villeneuve-des-Escaldes

Les Escaldes take their name from the ‘aigues caldes’, the hot waters. According to a local website, the Romans set up there one of their two thermal establishments in the Roussillon, along with Amélie-les-Bains; Wikipedia also mentions ancient baths, with no excavation cited. The first text on the place dates from 925 (will of Count Miron II). In the 17th century Joan Trigall, author of a treatise on the Cerdagne of 1603, describes a large building, a ‘chapel’ according to L'Indépendant, which houses the famous baths: everyone can bathe there, rich or poor. According to the local website, the consuls of Puigcerdà saw to restoring the baths in 1488, then in 1547; in 1687 a lavacrum and a few traces of a sudatorium remain; in 1756 a royal inquiry counts two springs that rise in a basin of 8.76 m by 4.50 m. In 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees placed the baths under French administration. In 1772 Louis XV granted the baths to the Perpignan physician Joseph Carrère, but the paid entry turned the inhabitants against the project; according to the local website, they sent a carpenter and a locksmith to close the baths. A real reconstruction followed between 1812 and 1847. The centre that used the waters closed in 2014; the communauté de communes bought it in 2024 and hopes to reopen it.

Getting there: The thermal centre, closed since 2014 (France Bleu), has belonged since 2024 to the communauté de communes Pyrénées-Cerdagne (52-hectare site, bought for 700,000 euros, reopening hoped for within three years, France Bleu, 5 November 2024; L'Indépendant, 1 November 2024). No bathing possible, to my knowledge; the situation in 2025–2026 has not been checked. Coordinates: centre of the hamlet ‘Les Escaldes’ in OpenStreetMap; the exact position of the springs and the remains was not found.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound