Arab Baths Cultural Centre – Villardompardo Palace

The palace was built in 1592 on the orders of Fernando de Torres y Portugal, ex-Viceroy of Peru.

This 16th-century palace was found to conceal beneath it some Arab baths dating from the 11th century. These baths were declared a National Monument in 1917. They are known as the Baños de Alí (Ali's baths), and are considered the most important in the city. They were an important place for personal hygiene, but also for social life. They were laid out in four different rooms: the marble lobby with red and white arches, then the cold room and the warm and hot rooms. There were boilers next to the hot room that filtered the heat through a system of shafts placed between the rooms' walls. The floor of the room is supported on three brick pillars, allowing hot steam to circulate. Today they house the Manuel Moral International Museum of Naïf Art and the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions. It was declared a Historic and Artistic Monument in 1931. The Arab Baths Cultural Centre reopened in 2014 and now offers a varied programme of exhibitions, concerts, lectures and demonstrations.