Places to visit Industry Loire

A day between high industrial technology and tradition! St. Alban's mineral water company opens its doors for a trip to the heart of production lines, impressive, which bottles 80 000 plastic bottles and 75 000 boxes (cans) of water, sodas and juice on time. A fully automated storage of over 30 000 pallets and automatic laser-guided vehicles that carry out the handling will surprise you.

Sail-les-Bains, of its Latin name Satio Aqua Saliens - jaillissantes waters, has always been renowned for its thermal waters. The Romans, unaware of the use of "chemical" medicine, attached great importance to mineral waters. The diversity of the Springs of Sail-les-Bains was a complete "pharmacy". After this exciting period, the thermal waters have remained a long period without history and it is truly the Renaissance that will give them fashion. This place was the favourite stay of the great ladies of the courtyard of Henri III. Two characters really gave their nobility to Sail waters: Diane de Châteaumorand, wife of Honoré d'Urfé, author of the famous novel «L'Astrée» - was known for her dazzling beauty and regularly came to the baths to make the healing of youth safer and to heal her complexion. Pastor, who in 1878, by a handwritten letter, officially acknowledges the qualities of Sail's waters that remain renowned for treating skin, joints and nutrition. They also have the virtues of rejuvenation. Pasteur considered this water to have «a huge value» and placed it in the «first rank of the most active waters». The thirties are those of prosperity; the post-war era makes it an appointment to the fashion of the stars of the time. But in 1985 a fire partially destroyed the hotel and marked the provisional decline of the establishment. 1998 marked the renewal of mineral waters with the restoration of uptake of the Hamel source (13 m 3/h at 28 ° C). Today, with a new state-of-the-art bottling plant - with a production capacity of 2 500 bottles per hour, set in the heart of the magnificent spa park, Sail-les-Bains mineral waters now find themselves in the market for large distribution.