Looking

Personally, I don't find the Place de la Comédie to be the most picturesque or interesting sight in town, but it certainly is the one people seem to want to publicize, mostly because it's the venue for a lot of city- and regionally-subsidized goings-on, like last night's Maghrebi pop concert and giganto-paella feed, both of which I didn't attend but got to hear. The city has two webcams, one at the Amazon jungle exhibit at the zoo, and the other at "la Com."

The Com webcam is a cheat: it's hardly in real-time, although you sort of expect that from a webcam. No, it's a loop of several minutes which plays for a while until another loop is recorded. I guess this way, if something bad happens in front of the camera, they can just not put it up. Also, the camera's on the side of the Tourist Office, and there's a rather large police station just behind it, something that might produce non-tourist-enticing video from time to time.

But in the interests of showing those of you who are curious what this place looks like a bit more, I present a very short video by Richard Cotman, whose excellent blog etnobofin often contains marvellous photography. Most of this takes place on la Com, though. Maybe you'll find the place more charming than I do.

Hm. Except that I can't figure out how to paste it in here. Well, go visit the video here instead.