Santander (Spain)

Santander is a ferry port and capital city of Cantabria (autonomous state) located on Spain's northern coast. The city is west of Bilbao and east of Gijon (France) and has population around 180,000.

As a service center at regional level, the city of Santander contains major public institutions as well as private organizations with many employees, including the University of Cantabria, Grupo Santander, Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital. Activities related to leisure, tourism and culture are an important part of its economy, and the municipal and regional authorities look to increase the summer tourist trade via additional offerings, such as conferences, conventions, cultural festivals and cruises.

Currently, the rise in port activity, growing value-added traffic (containers and vehicles of mostly solids and liquids) for storage that requires a lot of already scarce ground, as well as insufficient depth for larger ships, is forcing Port Authority to think over the long-term construction of new port outside the bay.

On June 29, 2005, the city celebrated its 250th anniversary. UIMP (Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, 1908-founded) is a summer university that organizes large-scale international music festivals - including FIS (Festival Internacional de Santander), FiMOC (Festival Internacional de Musica de Organo), Paloma O'Shea (International Piano Competition) and Encuentro de Musica y Academia.

In 2018, the cruise port handled just 7 ship calls, while for 2019 were scheduled 23 calls. That cruise berth (at Ferry Port Santander / Almirante Quay) is mainly used by ferries. In times with scheduled ferries, cruise ships berth at another pier, from where the port offers free shuttle buses to the city. There are plans for building a new (dedicated) cruise pier. The ferry terminal was extensively refurbished and modernized in 2018.

For 2 years (April 2018 through January 2020), Port Santander was directly linked with Ireland (Port Cobh-Cork). The passenger shipping service (provided by BRITTANY FERRIES via Connemara cruiseferry) offered 2 weekly return-crossings (cruising time ~26 hours). The service was terminated as BRITTANY FERRIES customers prefered the alternative Ireland-Spain route Rosslare-Bilbao.

Santander cruise terminal