La Unión

The yellow-and-black warning sign at the mine entrance reads “Prohibido el paso”, yet the gate swings open at 10 o’clock sharp and a former miner, helmet in hand, greets the first visitors with a curt “Buenos días”. Eight kilometres inland from the cruise ships of Cartagena, La Unión wakes up fast: lights flicker on inside the 19th-century shaft, coffee cups clatter in the Modernist market hall, and someone tests a microphone at the Teatro Circo Apolo for tonight’s flamenco rehearsal. This is not the soft-focus Spain of beach umbrellas and paella promotions; it is a working town that happens to keep its history on full display.

The Sierra That Paid for the City

Lead, silver and zinc financed the tiled roofs of Cartagena and the iron-and-glass elegance of La Unión’s own Mercado Público. Between 1860 and 1960 more than a thousand shafts were punched into the sierra; the slag heaps still glow an odd sulphurous green after rain. A guided descent of the Mina Agrupa Vicenta (€8, 50 minutes) starts with a clanking lift cage and ends 80 m below ground in a cavern where miners once hacked at a vein only 60 cm thick. Tours run hourly in Spanish, but the English fact-sheet is mercifully blunt: “Life expectancy in the shafts: 42 years.” Above ground, the Antiguo Lavadero de Roberto shows how the ore was washed and sorted by women paid by the bucket; their wooden clogs are still caked with red dust.

If you arrive on a cruise hop-on bus, allow two hours for the mine and market only; the last return service leaves at 13:50 sharp. Miss it and a taxi back to the port costs €25—more than the museum ticket.

Flamenco in a Former Circus

The Teatro Circo Apolo looks like a brick factory from the outside. Inside, it is a perfect 19th-century circus ring with wooden benches and a ceiling painted to imitate starlight. Every August the town hosts the Festival Internacional del Cante de las Minas; singers compete for the Lámpara Minera, a miner's lamp mounted on a block of raw ore. Tickets for the final cost €60 and sell out in June, but throughout the year you can catch Thursday-night peñas for €10—local aficionados, no microphones, a bar at the back serving ice-cold cañas for €2. The atmosphere is closer to a working-men's club in Sheffield than to a touristy tablaó in Seville; applause is sparse until someone hits a note that makes the walls vibrate.

Walking the Slag Heap Ridge

A way-marked path leaves from the petrol station on the RM-12 and climbs 3 km to the crest of the Sierra Minera. The slope is gentle but the surface is loose shale—proper footwear advised. From the top you can see both Mar Menor (a cobalt lagoon) and the Mediterranean proper, while below lie the ruined chimneys of Las Matildes and the San Diego shaft. Spring brings out thyme and yellow cytinus; in July the temperature hits 38 °C and the walk feels like trudging across a radiator. Take 1.5 litres of water per person and start early; there is no shade and the only café back in town shuts at 14:00.

What to Eat When You're Tired of Tapas

Miners wanted calories, not refinement, and the local kitchen still obeys that rule. Arroz caldero—fish rice cooked in a copper pot—arrives black with cuttlefish ink and fierce with garlic. Café Bar Central on Plaza del Rosario does a full English (£6.50) if you need a sausage break; locals roll their eyes but the coffee is decent. For something portable, order pasteles de arroz, deep-fried pasties of rice and rabbit that taste like a Cornish miner imagined by a Valencian. Sunday lunch starts at 14:00 sharp; arrive earlier and you will be stared at, arrive later and the kitchen is closed.

Practicalities Without the Brochure Speak

Arriving: No UK airport flies direct to Murcia–Corvera in winter; most Brits land at Alicante and drive 1 h 15 min down the AP-7 (toll €7.60). If you are on a Cartagena cruise, the hop-on bus is €18 return—check the last departure or you are stranded.

Opening hours: Mining museum, Tues–Sun 10:00–14:00; closed Monday. Market hall keeps market mornings (Mon/Wed/Fri) and becomes an exhibition space by afternoon. Almost everything closes on Sunday afternoon; if your ship docks then, come early or content yourself with photographs through iron gates.

Weather: At 86 m altitude La Unión escapes the coastal humidity but not the heat. May and October hover around 24 °C; August hits 38 °C and the sierra paths shimmer. Winter days are 15 °C and can be blowy—take a fleece for the mine, the underground wind is relentless.

Cash: Cards are accepted in the museum and one restaurant on the main square; everywhere else is cash only. There is no ATM on the pedestrian high street—the nearest is inside the Eroski supermarket, 10 minutes up the hill.

The Honest Exit

La Unión will not dazzle you. The souvenir offering extends to a handful of ceramic dishes sold from a garage on Calle Real, and the beach is a 20-minute drive away. What it does offer is a coherent story: you can stand in a mine, eat the food that fuelled the men who worked it, then sit in a theatre where their grand-daughters still sing the same laments. If that sounds like too much effort for a half-day shore excursion, stay on the coach and head back to the ship. The rest of the passengers will be buying fridge magnets; you will have missed the smell of rock dust and the crack in a singer’s voice when the laments hit home.