Thermes Adour de Dax

France's largest thermal town, known for hot Adour-basin water and its distinctive warm river mud.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Bathing: Indoor / Outdoor
Accommodation: Hotel on site

Dax has been a thermal town since Roman Aquae Tarbellicae, and it remains the leading French spa destination by number of visitors. The Fontaine Chaude in the town centre still steams into its stone basin, and Dax's speciality is peloid — a warm mud matured from thermal water and Adour silt, used in treatments across the town.

Balnevia view

Why visit

Come for a whole town organised around water: the steaming public fountain, the mud treatments, the arcaded centre and the Landes pine forest beyond.

The water

Thermal water

Source: Fontaine Chaude
Mineralisation: Chloride-sodium water; Dax peloid mud
Character: Hot Adour-basin water, also used to mature the town's characteristic thermal mud.