Irugurutzeta A journey to the heart of the mining and industrial heritage of the Basque Country in Irun

The Irugurutzeta heritage site comprises a series of mine galleries and mineral calcination kilns. To visit this site, passengers will depart from the museum and board the Mine Train, which will take them to the natural site where the mining operation is located.

Although the mining operations of Aiako Harria and their surroundings begin in Roman times, the structures at Irugurutzeta that can be visited are related to 20th-century mining activity and iron extraction.

After extraction, the ore was transported to the furnaces in wagons on railway tracks, or by air, using cauldrons suspended from cables. Once it arrived at its destination, the iron was calcined in the furnaces and then transformed into oxide, in order to increase its metal content.