Rio Tinto Mining Park — Attraction in Minas de Riotinto

An extraordinary geological display. I was completely fascinated after only just having visited the museum and gone to the view point overlooking one of the open mines.

Never seen anything like this in life. Its saturated colour and its massive scale. I was in awe. Millions of years geological sedimentary deposits. But what are we human trying to do with them within the small window of these few hundreds of years?

It's a shame that I almost felt the Spanish foundation that managing the touristic side of it was unwilling to cater it for any non-Spanish speakers. Nearly all information in the museum was given in Spanish. Their website was all in Spanish. There's an audio guide (to access via your phone) which has contents in English, but they don't tell you its existence when you buy the tickets. I had to send my husband to ask if there's any when I found everything was in Spanish. Only €2. I'm sure most visitors would be more than willing to pay for it.

We arrived at midday. No more tickets for the earlier train and only another was to be scheduled for after 4pm. We have a little child and staying around for that many hours was not feasible. And a few other activities were also for after 4-5pm. All in all, if you want to make the best out of your day, you do need to plan ahead and buy tickets...

Very well worth a visit and a wonderfully scenic drive to the village of Rio Tinto. The museum is very well presented and the train journey which starts about 7 kms away from the museum, fascinating and with a very nice cafe offering sandwiches and drinks before starting the journey. On our return, there was then an hour to wait before we could view the original Mine Manager's House as the Museum staff have there siesta between 3 and 4 pm. The day was completed nicely with the walk through the tunnel to the flooded quarry at the Piena de Hierro mine which is about 10 kms from the museum but the guide leads the convoy of tourist cars to the mine. It is essential to check the times of the train journey as I understand that it runs only once a day ; then you can plan your visit accordingly to ensure that you can see everything in the one day. My only negative, but constructive comment would be that the museum should cater for English speaking tourists on the exhibits. Also, the guide on the train only gave his commentary in Spanish - but it must be said that he did respond in English to any queries from the visiting English...

Perfect attraction. There is a museum, old mine (the view is wonderful), several miner's houses and a train. The train ride takes 1.5 hrs with 1 15-minute stop near Red river, and you can take photos there. It's OK to go with children here, I think they will also be interested. Regarding the tickets, the train ride has fixed time according to the time in the ticket, the mine trip is also fixed (6pm). Other attractions are available all the time except siesta in the middle of the day. Tickets for the train & mine are limited, so it's better to buy them beforehand online. If you plan to visit all the attractions - you should plan to spend all day there. Regarding dinner - there are several bars in the town so it's worthy to use siesta time to have a meal break. It's highly recommended to go by car - the attractions are spread by quite a big territory (10+ mins by car...