USP With fluffy bathrobes, assisted bathing and a horizontal bungee, it's quite hard to be a grown-up on this French spa retreat.

AMBIENCE Right on a beautifully preserved seafront not too far from Spain. Behind the front line of low-rise hotels and apartments is what feels like a mountain town that has slipped down to the coast. The buildings have thick walls, deep-red beams and rustic balconies.

EXPERIENCE The best bit of regression therapy is the giant 12ft wide Jacuzzi, which bubbles like a semi-dormant geyser and extends outside onto the beach. Assistants hose you with warm sea water in places that help your circulation, or in some cases simply make you giggle. Between baths and massages, you can get beauty treatments, sweat your beauty treatments off in the hammam or sauna, or tone your muscles with “aquagym” in the pool, then strain them again in the fitness room.

FOOD Large all-you-can-eat breakfast bar with fresh fruit for the slimmers and jambon de Bayonne for the bingers. Dinner is a four-course affair served in the grand art-deco dining room.

IN CROWD A bunch of grown-up kids wrapped in big bathrobes.

WALLET WATCH The three-day "Escapade decouverte", with three treatments a day, is £318 per person. The "Evasion marine détente et bien-être" (relaxation and wellbeing stay) runs for a week and includes four daily treatments for £855 per person.

NEED TO KNOW Saint-Jean-De-Luz, France (00 33 5 59 51 51 51; www.helianthal.fr)

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