Salt Eco-Museum

Since prehistoric times, the salt water spring has been the salt of life for Leintz-Gatzaga. A Museum now recovers the systems used over centuries to extract the salt.

The extraction of the salt was the origin of Leintz-Gatzaga, which gave it its way of life and even its name. Compared to other systems which used natural evaporation, this system is unique since it obtains the salt through careful heating with firewood. At the foot of Dorleta shrine, the Salt Museum recovers the salt facility which was in operation here from the Iron Age through to its close in en 1972. It shows the techniques used in its history, from the "dorlas" or iron boilers introduced in the 16th century, through to the creation in the 18th century of a drainage and water channelling system which used a spectacular wheel with hoppers, right through to the industrial era.