Thermes gallo-romains du Nord de Vaison-la-Romaine

The public bathhouse of the La Villasse archaeological site was constructed in the second or third decade of the first century CE and included multiple rooms, likely a changing room (apodyterium), cold-water room (frigidarium), tepid-water room (tepidarium), and hot-water room (caldarium). The latter two rooms were heated by an underground hollow space filled with hot air (hypocaustum), the temperature of which was controlled by means of a wood-burning furnace bordering on the baths on the east. Just south of the bathhouse lay a large open area surrounded by porticoes which has been identified as an exercising field or palaestra; in fact, the bathhouse was entered via the northern portico of this complex. Across what was likely a street to the west of the bathhouse, in the northern part of the vast "Maison au dauphin", lay the private bathing quarters of this mansion; the two bathing complexes were likely supplied with water via the same channels.