Huete

Huete, located in Cuenca (Alcarria region), will surprise you with its numerous monuments, concentrated in a small urban area. In this charming town, you can visit monasteries, convents, towers, remains of walls, palace-houses, churches and half a dozen museums, as well as a valuable Roman mine just a few kilometres away.

One of the highlights is the ancient Monastery of La Merced, built between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This used to be a very important convent, which is currently used for both religious (Church of San Esteban, the main one in the town) and public purposes: Town Hall, library, tourist office and for three museums, such as the Sacred Art Museum, the Florencio de la Fuente Contemporary Art Museum and the Ethnographic Museum.Huete also has other museums, such as the Photography Museum of the Antonio Pérez Foundation, located in the old Renaissance Convent of Jesus and Mary (sixteenth century); the Visitor Centre of the Festivities of San Juan Evangelista; and the Forge Museum, which is located in a house where metals were once forged. Other important monuments are the baroque Church of San Nicolás el Real de Medina (early eighteenth century); Clock Tower; or the Gothic apse of the old Church of Saint Mary of Atienza, open to visitors and used for concerts or astronomical observations.Less than 10 kilometres away from the centre you can visit the Sanabrio Caves or Roman mines of Lapis Specularis, where the gypsum used to make glass for windows was extracted.