When it passes through Muskiz, on the border with Cantabria, the Way of St. James coincides with one of the most beautiful coastal areas of Bizkaia. Additionally in this section, the Way of St. James passes through the Itsaslur Greenways toward Pobeña and Piquillo, toward Ontón, old mining routes that provided service to the large mining operations located in this area.

In Pobeña-Kobaron, there were five mining operations, of which the largest was the Amalia Vizcaína mine, close to the Kobaron district. It is a mine that was exploited, like the majority of the area, with open-pit mining, with jack passages made on the hillside until they found the vein. Once they had found their target, they emptied the basin. When the subterranean water table was drilled while making these exploration galleries, water frequently flooded the forefronts of extraction. That’s how the small artificial lake known as the Encantada Cave was formed. Nevertheless, the most curious things about this area are the two twin moles from the Amalia Vizcaína calcining furnaces, which were built at the dawn of the 20th century and are still standing, though destroyed.

In addition to the Amalia Vizcaína reserve, in the neighbourhood of Kobaron, toward Ontón (Cantabria), you’ll also be able to find what remains of the El Hoyo-Ontón reserve. The Josefa and Celedonia mine belonged to this reserve. From the end of the 19th century until the 1970s, iron was extracted from these mines, bringing it by rail to the Piquillo loading dock in Ontón to then be exported by sea. The iron ore was extracted from the galleries, and between 1916 and 1929 a set of 6 furnaces were built to calcine the iron ore and quench and temper its iron content. The calcinated iron ore was stored in a carbonate deposit. It was then brought to the Ontón inlet via monocable aerial tramway, where it was loaded onto ships at the Piquillo loading dock and then shipped by sea.