Ferrol

Ferrol is a city and municipality in the province of A Coruña, Galicia, situated at the mouth of the Ría de Ferrol, one of the deepest natural harbours on the Galician coast. The city developed as Spain’s principal naval construction and repair centre from the eighteenth century, when Bourbon kings commissioned a major arsenal and dockyard complex here, parts of which survive as Baroque industrial heritage.

The Enlightenment-era town centre known as Ferrol Vello and the planned grid district of the Cidade Departamental give the city a distinctive urban character, combining the formal geometry of eighteenth-century town planning with the working port identity of a naval base.

Ferrol is the starting point of the Camino Inglés, one of the traditional Camino de Santiago routes. Pilgrims beginning here typically walk the 120 kilometres to Santiago over five to six days through the interior valleys of A Coruña.