Aubin and Cransac are two towns so close together that you cannot see the join.  But both have a very clear identity.  Aubin, with its connection to the mine at Decazeville, it’s musée de la mine and the maison de la memoire resistance, deportation et citoyenneté, has a gritty down to earth atmosphere.

In Cransac, on the other hand, you sense the loss of a more affluent past, an air of tired gentility.

Cransac’s elegant buildings: the huge Hotel Du Parc, the old town hall and above all, literally, les Thermes. Are down to the presence of thermal springs first exploited by the Romans.