The Beitou Hot Spring Museum occupies the original 1913 Japanese public bathhouse that was the heart of Beitou's golden age as a spa town. The two-storey building is itself the attraction: brick downstairs with the cavernous original bath hall (a Romanesque-arched, stained-glass-lit pool, now empty), wooden upstairs with a tatami room and a wide veranda overlooking the valley.
Exhibitions explain the geology of the local hot springs, the indigenous Ketagalan use of the springs before the Japanese arrived, and Beitou's brief reign as an East Asian spa-and-hotel resort. The museum sits a few minutes' walk from MRT Xinbeitou; before or after the visit drop into one of the public baths in Beitou Park to feel the actual sulphurous water.