Originally, Larreineta was used to carry both the mineworkers and the iron ore. Today, it is the inevitable means of transport used by local residents and a top attraction in its own right. It ends at the entrance to La Arboleda, the old mining area, now an outdoor recreational area.

After getting off at Larreineta and enjoying the spectacular panoramic views, a shuttle bus will take you to La Arboleda. La Arboleda is the old mining village where iron was extracted to be taken to the blast furnaces in Sestao. Today, the area is an outdoor recreational area where you can go hiking, fishing, mountain biking, mountain climbing or horse riding.

The old mining village is nestled in the Triano Mountains. For more information about Bizkaia's industry in the old days, you can get to the Peñas Negras Visitor Centre, 500 metres from La Arboleda. It is a nice walk to enjoy the natural surroundings. The former mines, which were shut down 25 years ago, gave way to lovely reservoirs set in green areas and home to trout and carp. You can go fishing in the lakes. Also, you will find picnic areas nearby.

Routes

The Basque Mining Museum lies in Gallarta, only 5.5 kilometres away from La Arboleda. After your tour of the museum, an expert guide will take you around for a first-hand experience of Bizkaia's industrial past.

In La Arboleda you should visit the Basque Country Mining Museum, the reservoirs and the old mining sites

Skirt El Ostión and Los Cármenes, two lovely reservoirs, and take a look at the Concha II mining site, also known as Corta de Bodovalle. It has been an Asset of Cultural Interest since 2011.

Once the largest iron ore mine in Europe, it is 700 metres long and 350 metres wide. Inside there is Bizkaia's greatest depth in an open-pit mine, at 37 metres below sea level. Women worked hard in the mines here. They manufactured as many as 1200 dynamite cartridges a day, waist-deep in water. Theirs was a physically strenuous job.

Now head for the town centre of La Arboleda. The former mining facilities were converted to houses and grillrooms, changing the appareance of the village. The authorities have kept a mineworker's home, though, to show the appalling living conditions these men and women had to endure. One of the barracks has also been kept, for visitors to understand how mineworkers and their families were exposed to hunger, exploitation and disease, a situation that was the breeding ground of the workers' movement. The Republican heroine Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, was born to a Basque miner here, in Gallarta.