I knew from experience that rental agencies in or near train stations and airports in France simply give you the keys, once you’ve signed the necessary forms, and send you on your merry way to hunt for the vehicle at the far end of the parking lot. And since one of those forms is an inevitably incorrect sheet indicating the agency’s version of pre-rental dents and scratches to your vehicle, your failure to re-inspect may come back to haunt you when you find yourself being asked to pay for someone else’s fender bender.

Having returned to the agency to correct the error, I then set off with a slightly scratched but correctly recorded compact and headed to Royat, the first hot springs/spa town on my list on this exploratory trip to Auvergne.

I assumed that Royat would be bucolically removed from the city, and my assumption had been reinforced by the fact that a tourist official had told me to give myself 30 minutes to reach Royat from the train station. She must have guessed, though, that I’d spend the first 20 minutes correcting the rental car scratch sheet though, because after only a 10-minute drive my GPS told me that I had arrived. But I didn’t appear to have arrived anywhere other than a slope on the edge of the city. It felt like being in Yonkers after leaving the Bronx, suburban yet still city.

Furthermore, my GPS, I discovered by the end of the day, would accept street names but not numbers, so it would abandon me at the start of a boulevard or avenue and leave me to rely on direct sighting to find my actual destination. My first destination, the Hotel Princesse Flore was indeed at the start of the avenue, but I went up and down the full length twice before feeling sufficiently confident behind the wheel on these narrow, winding streets to raise my eyes high enough to see “Princesse Flore” written on the side.

Timeline for hot spring towns in Auvergne

I’d come to visit this 5-star hotel and the adjacent spa and water park because they represent the latest step in the town’s economic evolution, an evolution that began nearly 200 years ago with the discovery of its hot springs.

Though not the case at Royat (aka Royat-Camalières), some hot springs in the region were already exploited during Gallo-Roman time (e.g. Le Mont Dore). Some supplied hot water and even heating to villagers in the Middle Ages (e.g. Chaudes-Aigues). And some were already attracting visitors in the 18th century (e.g. Chatel-Guyon).

For the most part, however, the development of these hot springs medical/leisure “resorts,” as we would now call them, largely occurred during the 19th century according to the following schema.

1. a trickle of visitors following the discovery of the spring (1822 at Royat);

2. the arrival of developers with a vision (1845 at Royat);

3. an increasing stream of visitors including some fashionable French or European aristocrats, who put the destination on the proverbial map (in 1862 the most notable of French aristocrats visited Royat: Emperor Napoleon III, who suffered from rheumatism, and Empress Eugenia, who suffered from his incurable philandering);

4. the construction from 1880 to 1913, the Belle Epoque period, of ever-grander hotels and villas and buildings with furnished rooms to rent;

5. a restyling, after WWI, of water towns and their installations for the evolving high-end curists (patients taking the cure), their entourage and other vacationers; at the same time, further studies were showing the medical benefits of the waters, whether through bathing, drinking and/or inhaling vapors (mostly for rheumatism at Royat);

6. an attempt to keep on a happy face after WWII despite increasing competition from beach resorts and jet vacations;

7. a fall from grace through the 1960s as thermal baths lost their luster and the state health system pays lesser fortuned visitors to come for a 3-week medical cure, and

8. an attempt since about 2000 for local government to encourage the arrival of medical curists while trying to find ways to develop other forms of tourism with or without the thermal baths themselves.

(There are no luxury resorts among the hot springs that I visit in this series, but that doesn’t mean that Auvergne can’t appeal to luxury travelers seeking rural pleasures.)

Royat, Princesse Flore, Royatonic

Royat itself was never a major spa town despite Napoleon III’s visit—the emperor showered most of his imperial thermal favors to Vichy—, but for a time it held its own. Its medically prescribed thermal facility still welcomes about 9000 “curists” per year with a prescription to take the waters for rheumatism and certain cardiovascular diseases.

The hotel across the street from Royat’s medical thermal center entered the scene at Phase 4 of the timeline above. Built in 1883, it was renovated in the 1920s, as can be seen from the Art Deco styling of the public areas, but fell into decline in the final decades of the century. It closed altogether in 1999 (another half-dozen hotels would close over the following decade), took a deep breath when it was purchased by its current owner, Isidore Fartaria, in 2001, and reopened in 2009 as Le Princesse Flore, named for the owner’s youngest daughter. It is now a 5-star hotel, which places it a couple of notches higher than any of the hotels in the Clermont-Ferrand.

As noted at Phases 6 and 7 above, the moneyed crowded increasingly turned away from hot springs such as these in the decades following WWII. Competition from more modern coastal or foreign resorts coincided with moves to include medical water therapy among those treatments to be covered partially or fully by the French public health system.

It was a double-edge sword. Medical coverage of taking the waters meant that certain thermal facilities would continue to function and perhaps flourish by attracting patients of the national health system, but it also led the well-to-do to spend their well-being funds elsewhere. After all, the latter were not about to hang out with the general and elderly population that could now enjoy (or suffer in) the same the hot springs thanks to a doctor’s prescription that meant that some or all of their expenses covered or reimbursed by the state system (le Sécu) and the rest by complementary insurance.

Several times during the course of my stay in the region I would be told that the Sécu killed the high life of the hot springs in France. While that’s somewhat true (as I’ve noted, coastal resorts and foreign resorts also played a role), the Sécu has also allowed helped these towns to survive.

But no spa town wants to live by Sécu alone. For all its positive effects on the well-being of citizens and long-term residents, doing so could a town into a socialist retirement home. (Interestingly, spa towns tend to vote rightward rather than leftward.) So in recent years Royat (pop. 4500) and other towns have sought ways of giving some economic umph to their aquatic heritage by coupling local or regional public investments with private investients.

The Princesse Flore, privately owned, and the adjacent spa and water park Royatonic, owned by the municipality, are a case in point.

As the top hotel in the immediate Clermont-Ferrand region, the Princesse Flore is primarily (at 85%, according its director) a business hotel. There’s no good reason for an upscale leisure traveler to stay here (might as well leave the urban environment altogether) unless transiting as a family through Clermont-Ferrand on an overnight. However, if I were a business traveler who’d just spent the day at one of those French meetings that end with everyone promising to think about the situation some more and to call each other in another week or two, or three or four because vacations are coming up, I wouldn’t mind coming home to this 43-room hotel. In addition to the visible comfort of the rooms and suites, guests have free access to the watery playground of Royatonic next door and can purchase some spa treatments there.

I did not stay the night since I had a chateau-hotel in the country to look forward to that evening. But I took the time to relax for 15 minutes on a hydro-massage bed (Hydro-Jet) in Royatonic’s peaceable Sanhoa-branded spa treatment area and then made the rounds of steam, baths (cold, warm, hot, scented) and basins of its water park. At Royatonic, the water springs from its source at 86F (30C) and his heated several degrees for the indoor pool and several degrees more for the outdoor pool, which is open year-round.

Royatonic is a public project (with plans for expansion), publicly funded and operated, that, according to its director, turns a profit. How it’s public investment and operation is actually calculated with respect to that profit I leave to French journalists to investigate, but the figure that I was given of 165,000 visitors for last year is indeed significant.

Royatonic is certainly a nice place for locals and for business travelers to gather and relax—except when there’s an underwater spin class going on and the music is pumped up in contradiction of the sign asking visitors to respect the calm.

The group was cycling to the tunes from “Grease”: “Grease lightning, go grease lightening…,” “Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far…”

So much for relaxation.

Anyway, I’d come for research rather than zenitude, and I had a lunch appointment at Chatel-Guyon, the next spa town on my list.

So I plugged Chatel-Guyon into the GPS, with Anywhere for a street name, and drove into the hills.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Hotel Princesse Flore, 5 place Allard, 63130 Royat. Tel. 04 73 35 63 63. Princesse Flore is the first French member of Best Western’s Premier association of hotels.

Royatonic and Spa SanHoa, 5 avenue Auguste Rouzard 63130 Royat. Tel. 04 73 29 58 90.

Return to Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand by clicking here.
Go to:  Part III: Chatel-Guyon.
Part IV: Chateau La Caniere, a luxury hotel.
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part II, An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’ve set out from Paris on a 5-day trip to visit some of the region’s spa towns. It’s a 3½-hour ride by train to Clermont-Ferrand, the regional capital, with stops at the towns of Nevers, Moulins, Vichy and Riom/Chatel-Guyon. Of these towns only Vichy is likely to ring any bells outside of France, whether those bells call to mind water, beauty products, spas, war or some vague “I’ve heard of it.” My research into spa towns began several years ago in Vichy, resulting in the article and accompanying audio slideshow found here. That was followed up by a trip to Moulins and surroundings, during which I visited the old spa town of Bourbon-l’Archambault, mentioned in the context of a Tasted-Tested article found here.

Clermont-Ferrand isn’t a spa town itself but rather an industrial town strongly associated with the Michelin company, which is headquartered here. I’ll spend the night there then put up a rental car in the morning to visit some of the towns that are included on the Route of Spa Towns of the Massif Central, la Route des Villes d’Eaux du Massif Central, which covers 17 destinations. Villes d’eaux is literally translated as Water towns, a term that the speaks of the source rather than its use. Water resorts are another way to think of them.

From Clermont-Ferrand I’ll visit Royat, Châtel-Guyon, Mont Dore, Saint-Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues, and points in between, before spending a final day on the Aubrac Plateau, at the southern tip of Auvergne.

The Train to Clermont-Ferrand

Unlike the high-speed trains heading to more familiar destinations and quickly showing their affinity to wide landscapes, the train into the middle of France, due south of Paris, sets off on an old chug-chug line (as opposed to a newer TGV lines). It soon reveals the architecture of middle-class southern exurbs of the Paris: the stone-and-brick pavilions of the 19th century, the tile-roofed pale-stucco cookie-cutter homes of the 20th century, the strip malls and the industrial parks. After 20 minutes the train hits an unsteady stride that switches back and forth between a trot and a gallop over the next three hours.

Whatever one’s direction on leaving the capital on an inter-regional or international train, a shift in speed and landscapes occurs after 18 to 22 minutes. After another 10 minutes your thoughts are drawn forward and you are no longer leaving Paris but headed someplace else.

While I’ve made a few forays into Auvergne over the years, it still feels like a new destination to me. Prior to several years ago, my contact with Auvergne in Paris and elsewhere over the years had primarily come in the form of:
– numerous old-time cafes and bistros created by Auvergnats who immigrated to the capital in the first half of the 20th century;
– some friends and acquaintances who left Auvergne long ago;
– accounts of people who one went hiking there,
– and the folksy Ambassade d’Auvergne, a two-floor regional restaurant in Paris (located between the Pompidou Center and Arts et Métiers), where staples include the tasty calorie-bomb aligot, made of mashed potatoes, cheese (fresh cantal), cream and garlic, all pulled from a copper pot and typically accompanied with sausage, and the delicious gut-busting truffade, made of thinly sliced potatoes sautéed in duck or goose fat, covered with the same cheese and served with pork cold cuts.

Two hours out from Paris and just past the town of Nevers, on the southwest edge of Burgundy, the train enters Auvergne without any noticeable change viewed from the track. Small towns and villages are still comprised largely of stucco houses (ivory, pink, mustard, brown) with tiles roofs (orange, red, brown), occasionally an older farmhouse, a manor or a castle. The tracks cross rivers and canals. Out the window passengers who aren’t sleeping can pass green pastures, white cattle, newly plowed fields and bare woods. It’s late March, early spring. The bushes and trees along the tracks are barely in bud so there landscape is never screened from view.

The landscape is mostly flat, with an occasional mound. Past Moulins (2.5 hours) then Vichy (3 hours) the mounds lead to hills, followed by an eruption of higher hills and ridges in the near distance and the mountains of the Massif Central further off. Then the urban sprawl of Clermont-Ferrand reaches out to greet the train.

An Evening in Clermont-Ferrand

No one to my knowledge has ever accused Clermont-Ferrand of being quaint or charming or even beautiful. Nevertheless, by the end of the evening, I think it’s a shame that I’ve had only a few hours—and Sunday hours at that—to explore the historical center.

Though it can hopefully be the starting point for wonderful travels and discovery it is not a luxury destination in itself. Michelin, the only component of France’s CAC 40 (the French equivalent of the Dow Jones Index) whose headquarters aren’t in the Paris region, leads the economy of this city of 140,000 and its suburban region of 300,000, followed by pharmaceuticals (Merck-MSD, Théa) and some metallurgy and IT companies.

Clermont-Ferrand has the bad rap of a city to which people are sent on business as punishment. But I quite liked the architectural mishmash encountered on the zigzagging walk from the train station, through the old town and out the other side to my hotel.

I saw a handsome WWI memorial.

I visited the early 12th-century Romanesque church Notre-Dame du Port just as vespers was getting underway and briefly joined the faithful and the faint ocher walls in inhaling the incense.

I entered the city’s black lava stone Gothic cathedral as the faithful were gathering there.

Beside the cathedral, the cafes and brasseries on Place des Victoires were doing unhurried Sunday evening beer-time business, while a statue of Pope Urban II continued to preach the first Crusade as he did at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

I crossed Avenue des Etats-Unis, named for the United States on July 4, 1918, in honor of the anniversary of the Delaration of Independence and the American participation in The War to End All Wars. (There are also avenues honoring Great Britain, Italy and the Soviet Union.)

I checked in at the VolcanHotel, a comfortable standardized 2-star Inter-Hotel. My room (204) looks out to a stucco wall, orange roof tiles and a church spire–who can ask for more on a short overnight? I like a good 2-star at the start of a trip to a non-luxury-minded town. Besides, lodging will only get better on this 4-night trip, you wait and see.

Then I went out again to visit the vast Place de Jaude with its theater/opera house under restoration and its fountain-bordered walkway. There’s a monument to here by Vercingetorix, the Celtic warrior who led the federated fight against the Roman conquest and won a battle again Caesar’s legions, presumably around here, before definitely losing at Alesia, in Burgundy (presumably). The statue was designed by Bartholdi, who created the Statue of Liberty.

I thought I might have dinner at one of the establishments on Place de Jaude but the square, undoubtedly bustling during the week, was looking rather desolate at twilight on this Sunday evening.

So I returned to Place des Victoires, by the cathedral, and eventually entered Oustagou. I hesitated because it seemed too much of an Auvergne cliché. But who can resist starting off with cliché, like all my visitors to Paris who crave a croissant or a crepe as soon as we set out for a walk. Anyway, the choices this evening weren’t legion, so I allowed myself to be ushered to a side table, where I enjoyed lentil soup, aligot with sausage, and a glass of light red Saint-Pourcain wine from further north in Auvergne.

The meal was fine—aligot is a hearty must-try dish—soon after I took a seat began what is probably the worst 20 minutes of musical selection that I’d ever heard in a restaurant. Allow me to list what I accompanied by regional dinner:
1. Without You (as in: I can’t live if living is…)
2. All By Myself (as in: When I was young I never needed anyone… Don’t want to be…)
3. Dust In the Wind (as in: All we are is…)
4. Feelings (as in: Feelings…)

And not soft background or funked-up versions of these but actual original screaming “I can’t live if living is without you.”

Under normal circumstances this would be enough to make you want to jump off the steeple of the adjacent cathedral, but no one else seemed to notice, except for one woman of about my age who wistfully said to her dinner companion, “Memories, memories.” (She said that in French, “souvenirs, souvenirs,” which itself a French song that one should never have to sit through in a restaurant.) But these were not normal circumstances: I had arrived in Auvergne to visit spa towns.

Leaving the restaurant I looked up to the open-snouted gargoyles on the cathedral for advice on what to do next.

They told me to go to bed.

(c) 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Go to Part II, An Introduction to Spa Town and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon
Part IV: Chateau La Caniere, a luxury hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

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The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part I, from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.