Cauterets

Cauterets (which derives from the word for hot springs in the local bigourdan dialect) is a spa and resort town (for long-term treatments) high in the Pyrénées. It has been revered since Roman times for thermal baths thought to cure maladies ranging from back pain to female sterility. Novelist Victor Hugo (1802-85) womanized here; Lady Aurore Dudevant—better known as the writer George Sand (1804-76)—is said to have discovered her feminism here. Other famous visitors include Gastón Phoébus, Chateaubriand, Sarah Bernhardt, King Edward VII of England, and Spain's King Alfonso XIII.