Minas da Passagem Minas Gerais

Halfway between Ouro Preto and Mariana, this ancient gold mine was founded by the Portuguese in 1719 and definitively decommissioned in 1985. Guided tours descend in a rickety antique cable car, covering the mine’s history and local gold-extraction methods, then visiting a subterranean lake and a shrine to the many black slaves who died here dynamiting into the rock. Any Ouro Preto–Mariana bus can drop you here (R$4.45, 15 minutes from either town).