Cambo-les-Bains

Cambo-les-Bains in the Basque Country of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département draws from oligomineral springs in a thermal town celebrated as the home of Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac, who built his extraordinary villa Arnaga here in 1906 during a thermal stay, creating a Basque-style palace of gardens and Basque neo-Renaissance architecture now classified as a historic monument and open to visitors as one of the Pays Basque's most charming museums. The lightly mineralised spring water belongs to a long thermal tradition associated with well-being in a graceful spa town that once attracted the cream of French literary society, on the Nive River, thirty kilometres inland from the beaches of the Basque Coast in a landscape of green hills, oxo-roofed Basque farmhouses, and the distinctive pelota courts central to Basque sporting culture. The combination of Rostand's extraordinary literary legacy, authentic Basque cultural identity, and a thermal tradition rooted in French literary history makes Cambo one of the most culturally rich of France's smaller thermal stations.