AT A GLANCE

Why go?

On a quiet street in the inland Alicante town of Novelda stands what many consider the best-preserved Modernista house in Spain. Built at the turn of the twentieth century for a self-made saffron trader named Antonia Navarro Mira and designed by the architect Pedro Cerdán Martínez, the Casa Museo Modernista is a three-storey mansion whose interiors still wear their original Art Nouveau decoration: stained-glass windows that flood the rooms with colored light, a swirling wrought-iron staircase, painted ceilings, marble columns and period furniture exactly as a prosperous Belle Époque family would have lived among them.↗↗↗

Now owned and run by the Fundación Mediterráneo, the house works as both a time capsule and a lively cultural venue, with guided visits, exhibitions, concerts and workshops. A tour takes roughly 45 minutes and is an easy, affordable stop to pair with the surrounding Vinalopó valley, only about 30 kilometres and half an hour by road from the city of Alicante.↗↗