Bagnols-les-Bains

Bagnols-les-Bains in the Mont Lozère massif of the Lozère département, now part of the commune of Mont-Lozère-et-Goulet, draws from oligomineral springs in one of France's highest and most isolated thermal stations, set at 913 metres elevation in the granite highlands of the Cévennes National Park where the Lot River rises near the spa before flowing westward through the limestone gorges that make this corner of the Massif Central one of France's most dramatically scenic regions. The spring water of Bagnols, part of a long thermal tradition, offers relaxation and well-being in the clean, unpolluted air of the Lozère highlands, a département that remains the least densely populated in mainland France and whose landscapes of granite moorland, beech forests, and dramatic river gorges create an exceptional natural environment for a thermal stay. The Lozère's associations with Robert Louis Stevenson, who crossed these highlands with his donkey Modestine in 1878 and described the landscape in his Travels with a Donkey, give the region a literary resonance that complements its natural and thermal heritage.