Santa Catalina de Montefaro stands on the high ridge of the Montefaro peninsula, across the Ría de Ferrol from the city — about a 25-minute drive via Mugardos. The monastery was founded in 1393 by Fernán Pérez de Andrade, the lord of Pontedeume, and was held by the Franciscans for most of its history. The original Gothic church is gone, but the present buildings — a sober Baroque complex built around two cloisters — date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The monastery was suppressed in the nineteenth-century Spanish disentailments and spent much of the twentieth century as a military barracks before falling vacant in the 1980s. It has since been partly restored as a cultural centre and conference venue. The cloisters and church can usually be visited during opening hours. The reason most travellers make the trip, though, is the location: from the terrace and the road just below the gate, the view sweeps over the entire Ría de Ferrol, the arsenal, the Castle of San Felipe, and the open Atlantic beyond — probably the best general view of the city you can get without a helicopter.