Vernet-les-Bains

Vernet-les-Bains in the Conflent district of the Pyrénées-Orientales draws from oligomineral springs at the foot of the magnificent Canigou massif, the sacred mountain of the Catalans whose snow-capped summit is visible from Barcelona and whose summit fire has traditionally been lit on the eve of the Feast of Saint John each year by a relay of Catalan runners carrying a flame from Athens to the symbolic heart of Catalonia. The spring water of Vernet-les-Bains, appreciated for relaxation and post-activity recovery in an accredited establishment, flows warm in a spa town that attracted the English writer Rudyard Kipling, who spent several seasons here and described the local landscape in terms that reflect the mountain grandeur and Mediterranean luminosity unique to this confluence of Catalan, Pyrenean, and French cultural identities. The nearby Romanesque abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou, perched on a cliff above a ravine at 1094 metres and accessible only on foot, and the medieval fortified town of Villefranche-de-Conflent visible in the valley below create a cultural context of extraordinary Pyrenean-Catalan heritage surrounding this distinguished French thermal destination.