If you are going to go to a thermal baths in Europe, you can probably do much better anywhere else…read morethan at Thermes Sextius. The actual thermal spring touted in guide books everywhere for being the "center and beginning of Aix-en-Provence" is nothing more than a small pool of water displayed like some crowing jewel in the lobby of this glorified waterworks. It puts out some 3m^3 of water every hour and factors in no way with the actual amenities of the "baths". This is my first point because there are many places, from Spain to Budapest that have legitimate springs that fill glorious baths with markedly unique waters that make a thermal baths, a thermal baths. Thermes Sextius has none of this and this misleading institution seems to follow suit, leaving this visitor and no doubt many others disappointed.
My visit was from the start stewarded by the most unhelpful and sarcastic staff I've met before, surprising especially as this is not some municipal or public bath house but a spa adjoining a four-star hotel. We paid 43 Euros to be dryly reprimanded by the front desk attendant for not bringing flip-flops, which she condescendingly 'lent' to us instead of charging us the 8 Euro fee she supposedly normally would have charged, which we were seemingly meant to be grateful for not being made to pay in her extreme benevolence. We were then asked wether we would be using their coin operated lockers and, when we found we did not have the required 2 Euro coins for each locker on us, told with venemous disdain that we could always use the code operated lockers, this despite none of this information being indicated on their website or any of their sales materials. Finally, after all this, we were told at a breakneck speed the various rooms to be visited, where to go, and what to do by the attendant and then vaguely pointed in the direction of their changing rooms.
What followed was the most confusing, disappointing, and frustrating experiences I have ever had the displeasure to call a visit to a "thermal baths". The hamam, dry sauna, and ridiculously designed "douches d'experience" (showers made to replicate some fanciful rainforest storm) were placed on the second floor and poorly indicated. Their only hot bath is a weak tub placed elsewhere on the second floor past a dimly lit array of exercise equipment, hardly reaching the advertised 30+ Celsius temperatures and complete with a weak set of jets that blow up from the floors, as if trying to tickle your toes into some childish concept of 'nirvana'.
Speaking of nirvana, It seems that true pleasure starts 120 Euros a person as their real calling is a set of overpriced and increasingly preposterous massage products that are advertised everywhere through some brutish attempt to tantalize spa goers into paying into a quick rub in one oil or another. Still unsatisfied? If you get stressed trying to run up and down their central spiral staircase between their cryptically located spa rooms, spread out from one another by a distance rivaling the journey of Odysseus between the various parts of the spa, you can always opt for their latest fad which we couldn't help to learn all about with their abundant display of advertising: A massage service where they lock you up in a room for an hour with a set of perfumed candles. Truly, this is the height of Europe's thermal/ mineral bath culture,a culmination of the art.
Furthermore, showers are located in dark cabins which essentially amount to glass cabins with garden hoses meant for hosing yourself down after enduring a ceaseless experience of mounting resistance to your own attempts of enjoying yourself. The wet sauna, normally paired with a cold water pool or shower is paired, instead, with a tub of ice chips that fills infuriatingly slowly or a lukewarm shower that pretends to sport cold water after the hot hamam. Tea is served in this formula, a short hike away in another part of the building beside a set of broken and uncomfortable lawn chairs that are the constant spectators to more television screens sporting advertisements for overpriced massages, subscription packages, and the like. All of these are easily located by a debate at the front desk by increasingly infuriating staff that have all memorized pre-recorded messages explaining where their various facilities, if they can be called that, are located. Still confused? Never fear! You will be treated to a delightful display of infantilization by haughty staff who believe that their constant repetitions of the same multi-step directions to reach the dark corners of their labyrinthian institution were not understood by obviously idiotic clients.
In sum, this should not be a stop for you on your trip to Aix. Despite being native French and hardly being tourists, we were treated to frozen smiles, an overpriced lukewarm bathtub experience, and a uniquely aggravating treasure hunt to earn what little we could for our trouble.
