El Bañuelo
Building · Granada
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Most of Granada's Arab baths were pulled down after the Reconquista. This one, on the bank of the Darro, was spared, and its bathing hall still stands from the 11th or 12th century, in use as a bath until the 16th. The name is simply a diminutive, the little bath; it was also known as the Bath of the Walnut.
The bathing hall follows the classic hammam sequence: cold room, warm room, hot room, a design that guided visitors through a slow rise in temperature and steam. The Zirid king Badis financed its construction in the 11th century through his vizier Samuel ibn Naghrillah, a Jewish philosopher and poet. In the 16th century, bathing days were still assigned in rotation between Old Christians, Moriscos, and women. Arab baths carried a reputation comparable to brothels among Christians after the Reconquista; El Bañuelo escaped the demolition that took most of Granada's other hammams. It later became the neighborhood's public laundry, filled with washing troughs, before 20th-century restoration cleared the hall and relaid its marble floor.
What you see
Star-shaped skylights pierce the vaulted bathing hall, scattering light across horseshoe arches on marble and stone columns salvaged from Roman and Visigothic buildings.
Practical
Free entry for EU citizens, a small fee for others; open daily, with free admission for everyone on Sundays.
hammamislamic heritagealbaicinmoorish architecture