Zalamea la Real

The Town That Copper Built

The church tower appears first, rising above ochre hills that look more Martian than Andalusian. This is your first clue that Zalamea la Real isn't another whitewashed village peddling ceramic donkeys to tour groups. At 400 metres above sea level, the town sits in Huelva's mining basin, where the earth itself bleeds rust-red from centuries of copper extraction.

Three thousand people live here year-round, and it shows. Cars park wherever they fit. Washing hangs from wrought-iron balconies. The Plaza de España functions as outdoor living room rather than photo opportunity, with grandmothers occupying benches at dawn and teenagers taking over at dusk. This is a working town that happens to have visitors, not the other way around.

What the Mines Left Behind

The Iglesia de la Asunción dominates the skyline for good reason: its Gothic-baroque tower served as landmark for miners returning from the night shift. Inside, the stone floors slope noticeably from centuries of parishioners' feet. The church stays open until 19:00, longer than most village churches, because locals actually use it.

Mining heritage isn't packaged here; it's simply everywhere. Follow the road past the olive mill and you'll reach the Mina de San Plácido, where a rusting headframe still stands guard over a shaft that plunged 300 metres underground. No ticket office, no safety barriers, just an information board that assumes you can read Spanish and use common sense. The GR-48 long-distance path passes several similar sites - bring a torch if you fancy peering into adits, though sensible shoes are more use than Indiana Jones fantasies.

The ethnographic museum occupies a former miner's cottage on Calle Real. Opening hours are erratic (Tuesday-Friday 11:00-14:00, Saturday mornings if someone's about). When it's open, entry costs €2 and includes a laminated sheet in English explaining why every kitchen had a copper pot and every chest contained a miner's lamp.

Walking the Sierra Morena

Spring transforms the surrounding hills from brown to emerald in weeks. The sendero to the Dolmen de la Pastora starts behind the cemetery - look for the green and white waymarks that appear every 50 metres when you need them and vanish when you don't. The 4-kilometre route climbs 200 metres through cork oak dehesa where black pigs graze freely. The dolmen itself is modest: three standing stones and a capstone that wouldn't merit a postcard. The reward lies in the view back towards town, with the church tower perfectly framed between two hills.

Serious walkers should tackle the Cerro Colorado circuit. This 12-kilometre loop gains 400 metres of elevation but reveals the full scale of mining transformation - hills carved into amphitheatres, rivers running orange, entire valleys planted with eucalyptus for pit props. Start early; summer temperatures hit 35°C by 11:00, and shade exists only in pockets. The path is waymarked but rough underfoot - proper boots essential, not the trainers you packed for tapas bars.

Eating Like You're Staying

Food here feeds workers, not food bloggers. Bar Central opens at 07:00 for miners' breakfast: thick coffee and toast spread with crushed tomato and olive oil for €1.80. By 10:00 they're serving migas - fried breadcrumbs with garlic and grapes that tastes like stuffing crossed with porridge. It's the perfect walking fuel, though portions challenge even hungry hikers.

Lunch menus cost €10-12 weekdays and follow a pattern: soup or stew, meat with chips, pudding, wine. Try the cocido on Thursdays - chickpea stew that arrives in three stages, finishing with the broth poured over rice. Vegetarians should head for La Tahona, the bakery on Plaza de España, where empanadas stuffed with spinach and pine nuts travel well for picnics.

Evening eating starts late by British standards but early for Spain: 20:30, not 22:00. Casa Paco does the best ibérico ham, sliced thin as tissue paper from a leg that sits on the counter all day. The flavour is nuttier than Italian prosciutto, less salty than you'd expect. Order 100 grams with a beer - they'll bring bread automatically and charge 50 cents for the privilege, because that's how Spain works.

When to Come, How to Leave

April and May deliver 22°C days and hills carpeted with poppies. October brings mushroom season and the vendimia celebrations, when everyone crushes grapes in the plaza and pretends the resulting juice tastes nice. August is brutal - 38°C at midnight, everything closed except the petrol station, locals fled to the coast.

You'll need a car. The train from London to Huelva takes two days minimum, then there's one bus daily that reaches Zalamea at 15:00 if it feels like it. Hire at Seville airport instead - it's 90 minutes drive on the A-66 and HU-4100, last 20 kilometres through landscapes that could double for rural Australia. Park on Calle San Sebastián where the road widens - the centre's streets were designed for donkeys, not Ford Focuses.

Stay at La Caldera Vieja if you want character - five rooms in a converted miner's house with walls a metre thick and breakfasts that include homemade quince jelly. It's €65 a night including parking, booked via WhatsApp because they can't be bothered with booking sites. Otherwise, Huelva city offers chain hotels 35 minutes away, useful if you're combining mines with coastal wetlands.

The Honest Truth

Zalamea la Real won't change your life. It's a place where tourism happens incidentally, where the museum closes if the curator's granddaughter has a recital, where the best bar stops serving food because the cook's gone to Seville for a wedding. That's precisely its appeal - no entry fees, no gift shops, no "authentic experiences" staged for your benefit. Come for the mining history, stay for the realisation that places still exist where the economy runs on pigs and olives rather than postcards and paella for Brits abroad.