Live cameras in Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of Galicia, in the green, rainy northwest of Spain, and one of the great pilgrimage cities of the world. The municipality has roughly 100,000 residents. According to medieval tradition, the remains of the apostle Saint James were found here in the ninth century, and the cathedral built over his tomb became the goal of the Camino de Santiago, the network of pilgrim routes that crosses Spain, Portugal and much of Europe. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims now arrive each year on foot, by bicycle or on horseback, many of them ending their journey in the Praza do Obradoiro in front of the cathedral's baroque facade. The granite old town, with its arcaded streets and squares, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

About the cameras

The cameras grouped under Santiago de Compostela come from the DGT, the Dirección General de Tráfico, which manages traffic on Spain's state roads, and each one sends a new still picture every few minutes. Around the city they watch busy routes such as the AP-9 motorway along the Atlantic corridor between A Coruña and Vigo, the A-54 toward Lugo and the roads near Rosalía de Castro airport at Lavacolla. The images show traffic flow, heavy rain and fog, which often settles over the hills around the city.

Santiago runs on Central European Time, one hour ahead of UTC in winter and two in summer, which means late sunrises: in winter the sky is often still dark at half past eight. The city is among the wettest in Spain, receiving around 1,800 millimeters of rain a year, mostly from autumn to spring. July 25, the Feast of Saint James, is the high point of the year, with fireworks and big crowds, and summer is the busiest pilgrim season.

For a nearby look, the Monte do Gozo hill east of the city gives pilgrims their first view of the cathedral towers, and the coast of the Rías Baixas lies less than an hour southwest.

Sources: Santiago de Compostela - Wikipedia · Pilgrim's Reception Office - Oficina del Peregrino · DGT infocar traffic information (Spain).