This Renaissance palace houses three excellent attractions: the beautiful 11th-century Baños Árabes , one of the largest surviving Islamic-era bathhouses in Spain; the Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares , devoted to the rural life of preindustrial Jaén province; and the Museo Internacional de Arte Naïf with a large collection of colourful and witty Naïve art.
The Arab baths were rediscovered in 1913 beneath the 16th-century palace, which had been built on top of them. Of their three rooms (cold, warm, hot), the warm room, with its multiple horseshoe arches, is the finest. In an adjoining room, glass flooring reveals part of a Roman street. A 10-minute explanatory film with English subtitles is part of the visit to this section.
The Museum of People's Art & Customs, spread over several floors, covers everything from wine-making to saddlery to pig-slaughtering (matanza) . There's an antique doll's house and a recreation of an early-20th-century rural home, but perhaps most evocative are the photos of country life a century ago, showing just how tough and basic it was. The Naïve art museum is based on the work of its founder, Manuel Moral. You can spend a long time lost in the everyday detail so playfully depicted in these works.
