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Vichy

Vichy is a spa and resort town in central France, in the Allier department and Auvergne region.

Tchaikovsky visited Vichy on two occasions:

• 1/13 July–12/24 July 1876 — visiting in order to benefit from the health-giving properties of the town's spa waters. "But all too soon he was complaining miserably to Anatoly that 'everything has conspired here to make my stay unbearable' [1]. He hated rising at five in the morning, he hated taking the baths, he hated the crush for every glass of mineral water and the idle bustle of the resort town, and he even hated the landscape. But worst of all was the loneliness that poisoned every waking moment. Unable to endure the full course of treatment, Tchaikovsky invented a story for his doctor to the effect that family circumstances prevented him from staying in Vichy for more than ten days, and on 12/24 July he returned to Lyon" [2].
• 12/24 June–3/15 July 1892 — the composer took his unwell nephew Vladimir Davydov ("Bob") to imbibe the spa waters at Vichy, also accompanied by Tchaikovsky's sister-in-law Praskov'ia.

References:

1. Letter 480 to Anatolii Tchaikovsky, 3/15 July 1876 [back]
2. Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky. The Quest for the Inner Man (1991), p. 179 [back]