Museo de la Imprenta y de las Artes Gráficas

It was the Mercedarian friar Juan Devesa Blanco who, in the late 1980s, handed over several rooms of the Royal Monastery of Santa María to set up what became Spain's first printing museum. That is how the Museum of Printing and Graphic Arts began, in El Puig, 16 km from Valencia and, according to its operators, the second of its kind in Europe after the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz.

What you see inside

The route brings together around 60 machines and presses, along with type moulds and the full kit that made printed words possible. The piece that catches everyone is the reconstruction of a 15th-century workshop, with a replica of the wooden press of the kind used by Gutenberg and Lambert Palmart, the printer who in 1474 turned out the Obres o trobes en lahors de la Verge Maria in Valencia, the first book printed in Spain.

Planning your visit

• Admission is free, both for self-guided and guided visits.
• It sits inside the Royal Monastery of Santa María itself, so it pairs well with the cloister and the church.
• Check the opening hours before you go, as they shift with the season.

It makes a good stop if you are after free things to do near Valencia with some history behind them.