Shopping, pharmacy, doctor, laundry: how to organise three weeks of thermal cure in Luxeuil-les-Bains, and what the daily budget should allow for.
Three weeks is long enough that you have to organise yourself as you would at home. Here are the practical points spa guests generally discover on day three.
Shopping
Luxeuil is a working town, not a village: it has the everyday shops, supermarkets on the edge and food shops in the centre.
The rhythm that works. A big shop on arrival, then a weekly restock, topped up with the town-centre shops for fresh food. It costs less than buying day to day, and it frees your afternoons.
The market. Worth the detour for regional produce. Ask the tourist office for the day and the location when you arrive — it is one of the first things to settle.
The first evening. If you arrive on a Sunday, everything will be shut. Bring something for dinner and breakfast: it is the classic first-cure mistake.
Cooking on site
You will cook around twenty dinners at home. It is not a constraint, it is the normal way a cure works — and it is what keeps the budget bearable.
Check before booking that your accommodation has an oven, a microwave and a decent-sized fridge. A kitchenette “for emergencies” is fine for three nights, not twenty-one. Both our flats have all three.
Laundry
This is the number one daily subject in a cure, and nobody thinks of it before leaving.
Swimsuit, towel, robe, wrap: you come home with damp laundry every single morning. That means a wash every two or three days, so seven to ten loads over the cure.
Three scenarios:
- A machine in the flat: maximum comfort, and the only one that lets you pack a week’s suitcase instead of three.
- A launderette: workable, but it is an outing every other day, with the bag, sometimes in the rain.
- Nothing: to be avoided outright on a cure.
A tumble dryer changes things again at either end of the season, when nothing dries in the open air. Both our flats have a private washing machine and tumble dryer, inside the flat.
Health: pharmacy and doctor
The pharmacy. Luxeuil has several, and an on-call service covers Sundays and nights — the rota is posted in pharmacy windows and at the town hall.
The doctor. You will consult a spa doctor at the start of the cure in any case: they set your treatment programme. For anything unrelated to the cure, finding an available GP in a town where you are passing through takes time. Hence the recurring advice: bring three full weeks of your treatment, plus a margin.
In an emergency, the usual numbers apply: 15 (Samu), 112 (European emergency number), 114 by text for deaf and hard-of-hearing callers.
Internet and phone
Check that your accommodation has Wi-Fi and that it is included. Over three weeks it is not a detail: it is what lets you video-call family, watch something in the evening and plan your outings. Both our flats have it, with a television and DVD player.
The daily budget
Beyond accommodation and treatment, allow for:
- shopping for three weeks, as you would at home;
- fuel, if you plan Sunday outings;
- admission to museums and sites, modest;
- the local tourist tax, charged per person per night — ask your host for the amount;
- a margin for the unexpected.
This is the item nobody plans for, and it weighs as much as the rent over three weeks.
Papers to keep
Keep carefully:
- the thermal establishment’s invoice;
- your host’s stay invoice, named and dated;
- your travel receipts.
These are what your fund will ask for if you qualify for travel and accommodation cover. We issue a detailed invoice at the end of every stay; not every private landlord does so unprompted, so ask when you book. What is actually reimbursed is set out in our article on thermal cure reimbursement.
The first-day reflex
Call in at the tourist office. Twenty minutes, a map, the month’s events calendar, market days, opening hours. It is the best investment of time in the whole cure — and it saves you discovering in week three what you would have liked to do in week one.
All of this works better from a well-placed flat: the Grand Mistral and the Petit Mistral are at 6 avenue Jean Moulin, 200 metres on foot from the baths and three from the centre. Our rates are quoted as a three-week total.