The city museum on Plaza de Mina is Cádiz in two floors. The ground floor holds the archaeological collection: Phoenician sarcophagi (two extraordinary examples in white marble), Roman statuary, Carthaginian amulets and bronze figurines. It covers the full arc of the city's ancient history, which begins around 1100 BC and makes Cádiz one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Western Europe.
The upper floor contains one of the most important Zurbarán collections in the world — twenty-one large-format canvases of saints and monks, painted for a Carthusian monastery in the 18th century and subsequently acquired by the museum. The figures are life-size, lit dramatically from below, and painted with an intensity that is easy to stand in front of for a long time. The museum is often quiet even in summer. Closed Mondays.