コンタミーヌサルジンの峡谷・トップ5

Superb view

very gloomy place housing the ancient thermal baths of the pont de la quailles

Ancient thermal baths, a rather dark and gloomy place

The Caille baths are former thermal baths, now disused, located in the Usses gorges, in the town of Cruseilles in Haute-Savoie. Probably already known to the Romans1, they are fed by two sulfurous springs which spring at the bottom of the Usses valley, downstream from the Caille bridges. These baths have been used several times at least since the Middle Ages. They were actually developed from the middle of the 19th century but have not been exploited since the 1960s, their location nestled in the gorges, the moderate flow and temperature of the springs not having favored the sustainability of the establishment. The waters are sulphurous, alkaline, gaseous, hot at 24°Re or 30°C1. They are used in drinks, baths, showers and steam baths. They become cloudy as soon as they are exposed to air and then give off a very characteristic odor. They escape in two sources from the limestone bases of the so-called “Châtelard” mountain. Their flow rate of approximately one hundred liters of water per minute corresponds, for example, to the content of a bath per minute1. They are easily digested; also, patients can drink 8 to 12 glasses per day. They are used more particularly against diseases of the skin, joints, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, internal and external engorgement, vapors, migraines, etc. The operation of the baths stopped definitively around the 1960s. The buildings were then partly destroyed, and ruins remained, including the old swimming pool at the entrance to which we can still read the inscription “BENI BE GOD WHO MADE THE SPRINGS BRING OUT. ALONGSIDE THE EVILS, HE PUT THE REMEDY.”

A great view for a wooden bridge… infamous in the region but superb.

View of the two bridges. You can cross the Pont de la Caille on foot or by bike and this avoids the main road.

If you walk across the small bridge, the stream immediately disappears into a crevice in the ground. It is only when you walk a few meters further that you see which gorge the inconspicuous brook has washed over hundreds, even thousands of years before it flows into the Rhone shortly afterwards.

Discover a surprising view of the Rhône gorges! This viewpoint is in fact the ancient site of the town of Léaz until the end of the 16th century.