Live cameras in Gasteiz / Vitoria, Spain

Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital of the Basque Country, where the Basque Parliament and Government sit, and the capital of the province of Álava. It stands on a high plain in northern Spain, and with about 260,000 residents it is the second-largest city in the Basque region after Bilbao. King Sancho the Wise of Navarre founded the town in 1181, and its medieval quarter still keeps a distinctive almond shape on a small hill, with the Gothic Cathedral of Santa María at the top. In 1813 the Battle of Vitoria, a decisive Allied victory over Napoleon's forces, was fought nearby. The city is known for its green spaces: a ring of parks and wetlands such as Salburua surrounds it, and it was European Green Capital in 2012.

The cameras

The Gasteiz / Vitoria cameras come from the Basque Government's traffic service and are published on the Open Data Euskadi portal. They show still images refreshed every few minutes from cameras on main roads and junctions in and around the city. Vitoria is a crossroads, sitting on the A-1 motorway that runs between Madrid and the French border, with roads branching north toward Bilbao and east toward Pamplona and Navarre. Look to them for queues, downpours and, in the cold months, snow or ice where the roads climb.

Like the rest of mainland Spain, the city runs on Central European Time. Its altitude gives it colder winters than the Basque coast, with frequent frost and fog and occasional snow, while summers are pleasantly mild. On late June evenings, twilight lingers past ten.

• July: the Vitoria-Gasteiz Jazz Festival
• Early August: the Virgen Blanca fiestas, opened by the descent of Celedón
• Winter mornings: fog and frost on the plain

Nearby, the Ullíbarri-Gamboa reservoir lies a short drive northeast, and the vineyards of Rioja Alavesa, around Laguardia, are about an hour south over the Sierra de Cantabria.

Sources: Vitoria-Gasteiz - Wikipedia · Open Data Euskadi - traffic cameras · Vitoria-Gasteiz tourism.