Turkish Baths (Hammam al-Basha)

Beautifully restored 18th-century Ottoman bathhouse, now a sound-and-light museum

The finest preserved Ottoman hammam in Israel, built in 1795 and now operating as an atmospheric museum with a sound-and-light show. The original marble floors, domed ceilings with star-shaped skylights, and bathing chambers are all intact. The show uses projections and audio to reconstruct the bathhouse as it would have operated.

The building also houses the Municipal Museum's archaeological collection, with finds from the various strata of settlement at Acre — Crusader, Ottoman, and earlier. A combined ticket with the Crusader fortress is available. Visit in the cooler part of the day if you can; the stone interiors retain heat in summer.

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A story
The hammam was built by Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar in 1795 and remained in use as a bathhouse until 1948. When it closed, the fittings and furnishings were left largely in place. When archaeologists arrived decades later, they found it essentially intact, right down to the marble slabs and the wooden changing room partitions.

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