Ponferrada

Ponferrada is a city in Castile and Leon, with a population of almost 64,000 in 2021. It's best known for its castle built by the Knights Templar, and as a stopover on the pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela. Its industrial legacy means it's not picturesque, but is near the weird landscape of Las Médulas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gold was mined here in a small way by the Iberocelts; when the Romans heard about it they barged in and grabbed the territory, and it became the main source in their far-flung empire. Also here were copper and iron, less spectacular but steady paying industry, and ancient iron propped up the town bridge to create Pons Ferrata. Mining, quarrying, tunneling and associated works created a strange convulsed Mars-scape especially to the west around Las Médulas. This lasted right into modern times, with tungsten a late product to make hard steel. Most of the ore was taken to the coast, where metal-bashing towns such as Bilbao could import coal (lacking in Spain) to power steel furnaces. The mines became uneconomic in the 1980s and Ponferrada fell on hard times, before reinventing itself through service industry, a campus of León university, and pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago.

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Ponferrada is it’s a stopover point on The Camino Francés and The Camino Aragonés. You can reach Fisterra in 12 days and Santiago de Compostela in 9 days.