FESTERO MUSEUM: This museum is located in the “Casa del Festero”, in the Plaza de Santiago. Inside there is an important collection of objects that are closely related to the traditional Moors and Christians Festival. Everything related to the Moors and Christians festival has an exhibition place in this museum. Costumes, posters and programs and an extensive archive make up the fundamental part of its funds.
Location: Plaza de Santiago, 3.
Contact: Tel 965803804.
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday and Monday before public holidays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visits from Tourist Info.
Admission: Admission € 1.5 (includes guided tour). Discounts: 25%: Children from 7 to 14 years old and people over 65 years old. 20%: groups (+15 pax), people with disabilities, i-más business card holders and unemployed with accreditation. 50%: Travel Agencies, tour operators and any other tourist brokerage company. 15%: Visiting three or more paid tourist spaces (discount cumulative to the previous ones).
TOWN HALL. MUNICIPAL PALACE: Built by Pedro de Medina at the beginning of the 16th century for the residence of the master beneficiaries of the Temple of Santiago (abbey house), it was alienated in 1576 by the ecclesiastical council and acquired by the City Council for Town Hall Houses. The valuation of the building is given by its Renaissance character, with a clear imprint on its façade, in two of its windows and in the double gallery courtyard with a built-in staircase. Its construction is attributed to Jacobo Florentino, a sculptor who had worked with Michelangelo in Florence, and who, after working in Granada and Murcia, died in Villena in 1526. Recently, in the middle of the 20th century, the façade was expanded in its upper part, also restoring the patio. The Villena Municipal Palace was declared a National Artistic Historical Monument in 1968.
Location: Pl. De Santiago, 2.
Contact: Tel 965801150. Fax 965806146. Web: http://www.villena.es
CASTLE OF THE WATCHTOWER: Built by the Arabs around the 11th century, it was declared a “Historic Artistic Monument” in 1931. It consists of two pitless fences crossed by round cubes, with the addition on the outside of a polygonal enclosure with four fronts, reinforced with cubes the vertices. The keep is square. erected with three-meter-thick walls, it consists of four bodies: the first two are made of Almohad mud, and the two upper ones are made of masonry, the latter being built in the mid-15th century by D. Juan Pacheco, second Marquis of Villena. The roofs of the first two rooms are made up of Almohad vaults with intersecting arches, of exceptional importance because, like those of the neighboring Biar castle, they are the oldest of their style in Spain. In the crowning stand out some small towers flown in the Portuguese-Castilian style. The Atalaya Castle, which until the 15th century coexisted with the oldest in Salvatierra, was the scene of various struggles, both during the time of Carlos I, during the uprising of the Valencian “agermanados”, and during the war of Succession that enthroned the Bourbons, or, already in the 19th century, during the war of independence against the French, who blew up the two magnificent Almohad vaults mentioned above.
Location: Cerro del Castillo.
Contact: Tel 965803893. Email: crv.villena@gmail.com
Hours: Closed for restoration works until 07/13/2013. Once opened, it will have the same hours as the Visitor Center where the information about the Fortress is.
Admission: Admission € 3 (includes guided tour). Discounts: 25%: Children from 7 to 14 years old and people over 65 years old. 20%: groups (+15 pax), people with disabilities, i-más business card holders and unemployed with accreditation. 50%: Travel Agencies, tour operators and any other tourist brokerage company. 15%: Visiting three or more paid tourist spaces (discount cumulative to the previous ones).
SANTIAGO APOSTOL CHURCH: Begun to build in the 14th century, its current appearance dates from the 16th century, being one of the most important Gothic-Renaissance complexes in the Valencian Community. Its three-nave plan and its torso columns, similar to those of the markets of Valencia and Majorca, can be considered typical of the Catalan Gothic, although they acquire greater monumentality here. At the end of the 15th century, with the patronage of the illustrious Medina family from Villena, the expansion that will cover the entire 16th century begins, introducing at this time the most outstanding Renaissance elements of the church such as the access door to the sacristy and the chapter room, the baptismal font and the two windows on the first floor of the tower, all from Murcia tradition and attributed to Jacobo Florentino and Quijano. The remains of the grate carved in 1553 stand out at the foot of the altar. Two marks were engraved on the outer face of the apse wall at a distance that corresponds to the size of the tahúlla. It was declared a National Historic-Artistic Monument in 1931.
Location: Plaza de Santiago, 5.
Contact: Tel 965803893. Email: crv.villena@gmail.com
Hours: Monday to Thursday, Saturdays and holidays before 11 am to 2 pm. Friday from 13 to 14 h. Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. Visits from Tourist Info (Plaza Santiago).
Admission: € 1.5 (includes guided tour). Discounts: 25%: Children from 7 to 14 years old and people over 65 years old. 20%: groups (+15 pax), people with disabilities, i-más business card holders and unemployed with accreditation. 50%: Travel Agencies, tour operators and any other tourist brokerage company. 15%: Visiting three or more paid tourist spaces (discount cumulative to the previous ones).
CHURCH OF SANTA MARÍA: Built on an old Muslim mosque in the 16th century, it became the church of El Rabal. It has a single nave, which seems to become three when drilling the interior buttresses. Its polygonal head does not have an ambulatory, and its ribbed vaults unload on pillars with attached semi-columns bearing engraved Renaissance reliefs. The Renaissance can also be seen in an interior door that leads to the sacristy, being one more element of this style located in our city. The façade is framed by a Baroque portico, while the tower, two-thirds free of its perimeter, is compared to that of Santiago.
Location: Plaza de Santa María.
Contact: Tel 965803893. Email: crv.villena@gmail.com
Hours: Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Every day from 6 to 8:30 p.m. For groups or after hours, arrange a visit C. R. Visitors.
MONUMENT TO CHAPÍ: Built by the villenense sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé in 1947, it was conceived as a tribute to the great musician, also born in Villena, Ruperto Chapí and is located in the park that bears his name. After several projects presented by Navarro Santafé, the city council and the “Ruperto Chapí” Cultural Athenaeum, they decided on the one we can see today. The work, sculpted with stone from Monóvar and Sierra del Morrón, is presided over by a seated sculpture by Chapí (of extraordinary resemblance), surrounded by allegorical figures from two of his works: «La Bruja», on his left and «La Revoltosa ”to his right.
JOSE Mª SOLER ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM: Founded in 1957. In its showcases, chronologically ordered, there are objects from the Upper Paleolithic, the Epipaleolithic, the Neolithic as well as the Bronze Age. This museum houses one of the most sensational golden finds from the Bronze Age: the Villena Treasure. The pieces that make up the Treasury are made with ten kilos of 23.5-carat gold in addition to an iron bracelet and knob along with three silver bottles that make up a unique set without possible comparison with any of the known findings of the same antiquity.
Location: Plaza de Santiago, 1.
Contact: Tel 965801150. Fax 965806146. Email: museo.ayt@cv.gva.es
Hours: Tuesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Admission: Admission € 2 (includes guided tour). Discounts: 25%: Children from 7 to 14 years old and people over 65 years old. 20%: groups (+15 pax), people with disabilities, i-más business card holders and unemployed with accreditation. 50%: Travel Agencies, tour operators and any other tourist brokerage company. 15%: Visiting three or more paid tourist spaces (discount cumulative to the previous ones).
BOTIJO MUSEUM: This museum exhibits an interesting private exhibition of more than a thousand copies. So characteristic of Spanish daily life, the botijo is represented under different textures such as ceramics, metal, wood, etc., as well as different sizes and shapes. The uniqueness of this museum lies in the fact that it is, together with that of Argentona, the only collection of jugs that can currently be visited in our country.
Location: Calle Párroco Azorín, 5.
Contact: Tel 618841308. Email: pcastelop@gmail.com
NAVARRO SANTAFE SCULPTOR MUSEUM HOUSE: The museum is located on the ground floor of what was the home of the distinguished sculptor from Villena, considered the best animal sculptor in Spain. Proof of this are “The Monument to the Bear and the Madroño” in Madrid or “The Monument to the Horse” in Jerez de la Frontera, as well as bullfighting groups.
Location: C / Escultor Navarro Santafé, 34.
Contact: Tel 965801150.
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday and Monday before public holidays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays and holidays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visits from Tourist Info.
Admission: Admission € 1.5 (includes guided tour). Discounts: 25%: Children from 7 to 14 years old and people over 65 years old. 20%: groups (+15 pax), people with disabilities, i-más business card holders and unemployed with accreditation. 50%: Travel Agencies, tour operators and any other tourist brokerage company. 15%: Visiting three or more paid tourist spaces (discount cumulative to the previous ones).
CHAPI THEATER: It is dedicated to his favorite son, the composer Ruperto Chapí and it was inaugurated in 1925. The first theater on record is the Chapel of the old Hospital de la Concepción, with origins dating back to 1838. The first known theater company was the “Compañía de Árabes”, which performed in this chapel in 1842. Subsequently, the Teatro-Circo Chapí was inaugurated on June 20, 1885, a year and a half after its construction began, and it was operating almost without interruption until the summer of 1908, the year it was demolished. Definitely in 1914 a board was created with the purpose of building a new theater. The foundation stone of the Chapí Theater was laid on September 7, 1914, the Valencian architect José María Manuel Cortina having been commissioned to do the work. Finally, and after more than 11 years, the theater was inaugurated on December 5, 1925, in its current exterior form.
Hours: Arrange a visit from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visits only Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (no visits on show days).
