Trapagaran (Valle de Trápaga)

The 09:13 Cercanías from Bilbao-Abando is still half-empty when it clatters across the river and dives into the first tunnel. Twenty-five minutes later it emerges above the Ría de Bilbao, and the city’s glass offices are replaced by terraced allotments, rust-coloured streams, and slopes that smell of eucalyptus after last night’s rain. This is Trapagaran – not a postcard stop, but a commuter town that happens to own a mountainside of abandoned iron mines.

Most passengers get off at the lower station, straight into a grid of 1920s workers’ houses built when the valley’s blast furnaces ran day and night. The high street takes six minutes to walk end-to-end: bakery, pharmacy, two bars, a betting shop, and a fronton where the pelota rebounds echo like gunshots off the flats opposite. If you arrive before ten, you’ll share the pavement with teenagers in overalls heading to the ship-repair yard at the river mouth, and grandparents clutching mesh bags of crusty bread. No one lingers; this is home, not a heritage set.

To understand why the place exists, keep going uphill. A lane signed Senda Verde starts behind the fronton and climbs through allotments where leeks grow in old tram rails. After fifteen minutes the tarmac gives way to a dirt track; the temperature drops, and the only sound is the river crashing through a gorge once widened by dynamite. Stone retaining walls appear, moss-covered and the height of a double-decker bus – these are the tips from the 19th-century workings. Look closely and you’ll spot sealed adits, their arches dated 1889 in the same font used on London’s old tube stations. The path forks: left to the ghost village of La Arboleda, right to the flooded quarries locals call los lagos. Both are walkable in trainers, but the slate gets slick after rain; if your shoes have the grip of a Saturday-night pub sole, turn back.

La Arboleda is three kilometres up. The company houses were emptied in the 1970s when the ore ran out, but the stone church still stands, its bell missing since 1983. UK visitors often mutter “Welsh valleys” here – the parallel is obvious, except the sun’s hotter and the cider’s drier. From the church door a gravel road continues to the Mirador de La Reineta, a platform built on a spoil heap. The view takes in the entire Nervión estuary, the cranes of Bilbao’s port, and, on clear evenings, the ridge of the Asturian Picos 80 km away. Bring a layer: at 300 m above sea level the wind can slice 5 °C off the coast’s temperature even in July.

Back at valley floor level, the afternoon belongs to food and football. Sunday lunch starts at 15:00 sharp; without a reservation you’ll queue with multigenerational families who treat the chuleton at Asador Maite as a weekly ritual. The 1 kg T-bone arrives on a heated tile, salty crust, interior the colour of a good claret. Ask for it poco hecho unless you enjoy chewing leather. A half-litre bottle of house Rioja costs €9, cheaper than the train fare from Bilbao. Pintxos are mild: try the gilda skewer of anchovy, olive and guindilla – nothing that will frighten a timid British palate. Cider is another matter: sagardoa is flat, sour, and poured from shoulder height to aerate. Locals drink in one gulp, but you’re allowed a sip first; if it tastes like scrumpy gone wrong, you’re drinking it right.

The mining funicular still climbs to La Arboleda every half-hour. It’s not a tourist ride – commuters use it to reach allotments and weekend cottages – so buy a normal metro ticket (€2.30) and stand right. The wooden car rattles up a 1-in-3 gradient, windows open, brakes squealing like the Central Wales line. At the top you can walk the old inclines where wagons once descended by gravity, or simply ride back down after a coffee in the station kiosk. Don’t swim in the turquoise quarries; the council fines trespassers €300 and the water hides 30 m drop-offs. Every summer a confident visitor learns the hard way.

Practicalities fit on the back of a fag packet. Fly London-Bilbao on any of the three daily routes (BA, Vueling, easyJet). From the airport take the Bizkaibus A3247 to Bilbao-Abando (20 min, €3), then the C-2 train eastbound. Trapagaran station is zone-2; the ticket machines take contactless. Trains run every 30 min until 22:30, so you can linger over lunch and still be back in Bilbao for a late pintxo crawl. The valley is at its best in late April or mid-October: green, 18 °C, and empty enough to hear your footsteps echo in the tunnels. August is hot and still; January brings horizontal rain that turns paths to chocolate mousse. Allow three hours for the round walk to La Arboleda, plus time to sit in the square and watch grandads argue over pelota scores. Accommodation? Better to sleep in Bilbao – Trapagaran has one basic hostal and the last train leaves at half-ten.

Leave before dusk and the valley returns to its own rhythms: lights flick on in flats built for blast-furnace men, a dog barks from a balcony, the church bell rings though the bell itself is gone. There’s no souvenir shop, no Instagram frame, just the smell of grilled beef drifting from Maite’s kitchen extractor. That’s the point. Come for the geography lesson – how industry, mountain and estuary fit together – and stay for the lunch you’ll still be talking about on the flight home.