All of this makes Vichy seem unappealing, and yet it has a certain element of charm. There's a real fin-de-siècle atmosphere about the place and a curious fascination in its continuing function. The town revolves around the Parc des Sources , a stately tree-shaded park that takes up most of the centre. At its north end stands the Hall des Sources
, an enormous iron-framed greenhouse in which people sit and chat or
read newspapers, while from a large tiled stand in the middle the
various waters emerge from their spouts, beside the just-visible
remains of the Roman establishment. The curistes line up to get
their prescribed cupful, and for a small fee you can join them. The
Célestins is the only one of the springs that is bottled and widely
drunk: if you're into a taste experience, try the remaining five. They
are progressively more sulphurous and foul, with the Source de
l'Hôpital, which has its own circular building at the far end of the
park, an almost unbelievably nasty creation. Each of the springs is
prescribed for a different ailment and the tradition is that, apart
from the Célestins, they must all be drunk on the spot to be
efficacious - a dubious but effective way of drawing in the crowds.
Although
all the springs technically belong to the nation and treatment is
partially funded by the state, they are in fact run privately for
profit by the Compagnie Fermière, first created in the nineteenth
century to prepare for a visit by the Emperor Napoléon III. The
Compagnie not only has a monopoly on selling the waters but also runs
the casino and numerous hotels - even the chairs conveniently dotted
around the Parc des Sources are owned by it.
Directly behind the Hall des Sources, on the leafy Esplanade Napoléon III
(the emperor's interest in the waters brought Vichy to public notice in
the mid-nineteenth century), is the enormous, Byzantine-style Grand Établissement Thermal
, the former thermal baths, decorated with Moorish arches,
gold-and-blue domes and blue ceramic panels of voluptuous mermaids. All
that remains inside of the original baths is the grand entrance hall,
with its fountain and two beautiful murals, La Bain and La Source
, painted by Osberd in 1903. The arcades leading off either side of the
hall, once the site of gyms and treatment rooms, now house expensive
boutiques.
To provide distraction for the curistes , a grand casino and opera house
were built at the southern end of the Parc des Sources. From May to
September the opera house is the venue for regular concerts and opera
productions, while lighter music oom-pahs out from the open-air
bandstand in the park behind it.
After the waters, Vichy's curiosities are limited. There is pleasant, wooded riverside in the Parc de l'Allier , also created for Napoléon III. And, not far from here, the old town boasts the strange church of St-Blaise
, actually two churches in one, with a 1930s Baroque structure built
onto the original Romanesque one - an effect that sounds hideous but is
rather imaginative. Inside, another Auvergne Black Virgin,
Notre-Dame-des-Malades, stands surrounded by plaques offered by the
grateful healed who stacked their odds with both her and the sulphur.
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