What you can see on the O Cebreiro webcams
A live camera at the pilgrims' hostel looks along the path through the trees, so you can see the conditions walkers face on the pass; a still camera at the weather station looks out over ridge after ridge of mountains. A 24-hour time-lapse of the hostel camera follows them.
The French Way arriving in Galicia
The broadcaster's camera is at the pilgrims' hostel of O Cebreiro, on the French Way about 1,300 m (4,265 ft) up, in the first village the path reaches in Galicia. It looks along a paved track between conifers and bare-branched trees, with grassy banks on either side, a parked car or two at the end and, on the left edge, the slope of a distant mountain.
There is no grand panorama here; the point is the conditions on the path. Pilgrims pass on foot, and the camera tells you at once whether the pass is in sun, cloud, rain or, in winter, snow. Some mornings the valleys below fill with cloud while the top is clear; on others the village itself is lost in fog.
Ridge after ridge from O Cebreiro
MeteoGalicia's station at O Cebreiro stands at 1,310 m (4,300 ft), and its camera looks over a wire fence and a tangle of birch and scrub to one of the widest views in Galicia: green valleys with scattered hamlets and fields, then ridge after ridge of mountains fading into blue. In the middle distance a motorway viaduct crosses a valley, a reminder of how much easier the climb is by car.
This is the picture for walkers about to tackle the ascent, or anyone deciding whether to drive up for the view: low cloud on the ridges, rain moving through or a long, clear horizon. Still image, not video.
Pallozas, a chalice and the yellow arrows
O Cebreiro keeps several pallozas, the round, thatched stone houses of the Galician mountains, one of them now a small museum of rural life. Its church of Santa María a Real, pre-Romanesque and founded in the 9th century, is the first church on the French Way in Galicia, and it guards a chalice linked to a medieval legend: around 1300, the story goes, the bread and wine turned to flesh and blood during a Mass said for a lone villager who had struggled through a storm. In the 20th century the village's parish priest, Elías Valiña, did more than anyone to revive the Camino: he researched the old route, wrote a pilgrims' guide and marked the way with the yellow arrows that pilgrims follow today.
When to watch O Cebreiro
O Cebreiro is one hour ahead of the UK and Ireland. The weather is mountain weather: fog and cloud can wrap the village while the valleys are sunny, or the reverse, with a sea of cloud below and blue sky on top. Snow is possible in winter. The cameras are the best way to know what you are walking or driving into.
Around O Cebreiro
West down the trail lie Triacastela and the great Benedictine monastery of Samos, then Sarria and Portomarín. North, the Os Ancares mountains are among the wildest in Galicia.
Getting to O Cebreiro
Santiago de Compostela airport is about 95 miles (153 km) away by motorway, which climbs past the village at Pedrafita do Cebreiro. On foot, the climb from the Valcarce valley in León is long and steep; many walkers rest at the top before heading down into Galicia.
