Warm water, cold water, and no music in either.

A single vaulted room, lit from four wells above the waterline, with the far end left in shadow. Two lanes are roped for swimmers from seven until nine each morning; after that the water is free. Never more than a dozen people in the room at once, because the changing rooms only hold that many.

Fir benches on three levels, a stove that is actually fed with wood, and a window at eye level onto the channel. Conversation is fine on the lower bench and rare on the upper one. The attendant pours water at half past every hour from four in the afternoon.

A tiled steam room scented only with the salt already in the water, and a cold plunge tank beside it. From June to September a ladder goes down from the quay into the channel itself; the harbour is clean enough to swim in, and guests who try it once tend to make it a habit for the rest of the week.

Four rooms with real walls and real doors rather than curtains, each with its own basin and a bench to leave your clothes on. Deep-tissue and Nordic oil massage, a salt scrub using the same salt the kitchen uses, and a treatment for tired legs that walkers arriving off the coast path book before they book the room.