The largest gold mine of the Roman Empire was located in El Bierzo provincia, in León. It was the most important gold mine, as well as the largest open-pit gold mine in the entire Roman Empire. They began exploitation of the gold in 1st century A.D. until the end of the 2nd century.

The technique used at the time consisted of building tunnels and galleries in the relatively friable clay rock, then flooding these cavities to collapse sections of the mountain. The debris was then washed and sorted to remove fine gold particles.

The view from the Mirador de Orellán (mirador = lookout) allows you to get an idea of ​​the titanic task that the Romans undertook in the area: a network of canals of more than 100 kilometers where the reddish sandstone cliffs that were left over from mining exploitation stand out. You can also visit one of the remaining mines open to the public.

If had rained all night and so we hoped it would stay away as we drove up to the mirador car park. However on arrival we realised the issue was not rain and gray skies, but heavy banks of fog across the valley. We walked up to the Mirador de Orellán hoping that the fog would lift so we could see something.

Eveyone we met coming down from the mirador kept telling us “ma tante niebla” and that they could not see anything. We continued and decided to do the mine tour and hoped by the time we came out the fog may have cleared.

The mine shafts were very low and we were grateful to be wearing hard hats as we hit our head numerous times. 20 minutes in and we came to the end which also overlooked the valley but we could only see white fog.

However by the time we came out of the mine and walked the next 50 metres up to the mirador veiwing platform, the fog had cleared and we could see the amazing valley that looked like something from the outback in Australia.

It is an amazing site and very interesting and we highly recommend a visit.