Saline-les-Bains blows your mind, because it shows you an aspect of medieval history that you probably had no idea about. Or at least, that I had no idea before I visited it. Over a thousand years ago people discovered that the water flowing up from underground springs was salty. So even as far back as 1115 they created “saltworks” to collect the water, dry it, to obtain salt. One interesting learning for me was: despite being treated very well, a worker’s life expectancy depended very much on the job they did – but also their salary. Working underground or doing menial labor was not terrible injurious, and such workers lived to 70+ years old. But the people who stoked the fires that dried the brine . . . they would die in their early 60’s.
