Termas de Bande (Porto Quintela)
- Location
- Province of Ourense, Spain
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 40 °C
- pH
- 7.2
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
At Porto Quintela, in the municipality of Bande (Ourense province, Galicia), the Termas de Bande occupy one of the few places in the world where bathers can soak for free in open-air thermal waters, in wells and pools carved straight into the rock. The site is inseparable from the Roman camp of Aquis Querquennis, built between 69 and 79 AD under Emperor Vespasian to house the soldiers constructing the Via Nova, the Roman road linking Bracara Augusta to Asturica Augusta.
Roman legionaries and the surrounding civilian population already made use of these springs, whose remains were uncovered starting in 1985 thanks to bubbles rising from the bottom of the water, revealing where the thermal heat met the cold water of the nearby reservoir. Today, the open-air pools continue this centuries-old bathing tradition along the Limia River.