Cádiz Museum

About Cádiz Museum

The Museo de Cádiz is the city's main museum of archaeology and fine arts, on the leafy Plaza de Mina in the old town. Its neoclassical building stands on land that belonged to the former Convento de San Francisco, and the museum has occupied it since 1935.

The collections have two origins. Paintings seized from closed monasteries in 1835 included a series by Zurbarán from the Cartuja de Jerez de la Frontera. The archaeology section began in 1887, when a Phoenician anthropoid sarcophagus was found at the Cádiz shipyards. Today a male and a female sarcophagus, the latter known as the Dama de Cádiz, are the museum's best-known pieces, shown on the ground floor with Roman finds from Gades and Baelo Claudia. The first floor adds Murillo, Rubens and Alonso Cano, and the second holds the puppets of the Tía Norica, the city's traditional puppet theatre.

Entry is free for EU citizens. The museum is closed on Mondays, opens all day from Tuesday to Saturday and only in the morning on Sundays and public holidays.

It is worth a visit at any time of year. In summer, use it during the hottest hours, and come on a weekday rather than Sunday, when it closes early.

Cádiz Museum in pictures

What you’ll find

• Museum exhibitionExhibition visitTicket
• Museum galleriesMuseum visitTicket
• Museum guideGuided tourBook
• Museum membershipAnnual membershipApply
• Museum workshopChildren educationBook

Nearby places to visit

The old town's beach, Playa de la Caleta (900 m), lies a short walk west between two sea forts. In the opposite direction, the Lithographic Workshop Museum (1 km) occupies the Bóveda de San Roque by the Plaza de la Constitución and preserves the presses and more than a thousand stones of a lithography firm founded in 1861. Beyond the walls, Playa Santa María del Mar (2 km) is the small, sheltered start of the Atlantic strand, which continues as Playa de la Victoria (5 km), about 3 km of urban beach with a long Blue Flag record, and then Playa de la Gamba (6 km), further south.