Camino de România 3

At a glance

• Start / finish: Timișoara (Piața Unirii, cathedral) / Oradea, Basilica Adormirea Maicii Domnului
• Length: 310.3 km
• Duration: 15 stages, avg. 20.7 km (Camino Ninja division); sporty 13 stages of 23.9 km
• Elevation: ↗ 1,072 m / ↘ 1,037 m — 3.5 metres of climb per kilometre, the flattest of the seven Romanian Caminos
• Highest point: 275 m in the hills of Bogda (Dealurile Lipovei); lowest point 86 m in the Criș plain
• Stages: 15 — Camino Ninja system; the association has not yet published stages or GPX for this route
• Landscape: Banat plain, Lipova hills with colonist villages, Mureș valley, Câmpia Crișurilor, the Criș rivers, thermal springs of Băile Felix
• Waymarking: in the making — Bihor county approved since 15 December 2025, Timiș and Arad still unmarked; GPS essential
• Traces of St James: no St James church on the route — the Banat was Ottoman 1552–1718; according to the association, however, a St James altar of 1808 in the monastery of the Grieving Mother in Oradea (1741), plus a St Roch church and statue in Timișoara and a St Roch statue at Maria Radna; the sacred anchors remain Maria Radna (Marian) and Oradea (St Ladislaus)
• Accommodation: no hostel network; guesthouses in towns and spa resorts, parish houses and municipalities in the villages
• Connecting routes: Camino de România 1 in Oradea — main axis east to Iași
• Connection to Santiago: none — between Oradea and Budapest the Hungarian route is missing
• Best time: April to June and September to October; heat warnings up to 40 degrees in high summer

Overview

This route has not a single trace of St James — and ends in a town that was once a Compostela itself. Oradea, Großwardein, Várad: here King Ladislaus I was buried after his death on 29 July 1095, canonised in 1192, and at his tomb trials by ordeal were held in the 13th century, „hundreds of trials by ordeal", recorded in the Regestrum Varadinense. In the 14th century „the city earned the designation ‚the Hungarian Compostela'", every newly crowned Hungarian king made the pilgrimage here, Sigismund of Luxembourg wanted to lie beside Ladislaus. From Timișoara, the 2023 Capital of Culture, you walk 310.3 kilometres there: through the hills of the Banat Swabians with the round village of Charlottenburg of 1771, to the basilica of Maria Radna, where a paper picture survived the burning of the church in 1695 and drew 25,000 people at Whitsun in 1832, via Arad with its Vauban fortress, through the Criș plain to the Romanesque basilica of Tămașda, which survived the Mongol storm of 1241 and use as a chicken coop in the 20th century, to Salonta and the thermal resort of Băile Felix, eleven kilometres before the finish.

To be honest, this is the youngest route in the Romanian network, and it is coming into being as you read. On 28 April 2025 Elisabeta Turi and Ramona Venturini presented the project at Timișoara town hall; on 7 September 2025 Turi walked the first kilometres, Timișoara–Giarmata Vii; on 15 December 2025 Bihor county council approved the waymarking; on 18 and 19 September 2026 the association invites to the launch event „Camino de România – Porți deschise spre Europa" — with a 14-kilometre stretch from Sălciua Nouă to Charlottenburg as „partea centrală a experienței de pelerinaj". Waymarking in Timiș and Arad: none yet. Hostels: none. Connection to Hungary: none — between Oradea and Budapest the route is missing. What there is, is the flattest Camino in Romania, 3.5 metres of climb per kilometre, villages where sermons are preached in four languages on Sundays, and at the end a town that knows what a pilgrimage is.

Other names

The route is called Camino de România 3 — the numbering of the seven Romanian Caminos has been agreed with the association that runs them, with whom we show these pages in cooperation. On its website the association organises by county; for this route those would be Camino Timiș, Camino Arad and Camino Bihor — so far only „Camino Bihor" with 17.47 kilometres is published, and those lie on the axis of the Camino de România 1 near Șuncuiuș, not on the plain. For Timiș and Arad, around 200 of the 310.3 kilometres, there is neither GPX nor stages nor stamping points. The association calls the overall project Camino de România; the 2026 event is titled „Camino de România – Porți deschise spre Europa", gates open to Europe.

Historically the Banat is not part of the documented pilgrim corridor. Ion Nicolae's founding text „Pledoarie pentru un traseu – în România – spre Santiago de Compostela" (2017) traces the medieval route via Cluj–Oradea, not via Timișoara–Arad — the Camino de România 3 is a modern feeder that links Timișoara's airport and railway hub to the network and ends exactly where the old corridor left Romania. And the name of the destination has three forms you will read all of: Romanian Oradea, Hungarian Nagyvárad, German Großwardein.

Who it's for – and who it's not for

Ideal if you want to be there as a route comes into being: the stages of this Camino were first walked in 2025, marking begins in 2026, and whoever walks now is among the first — the association is looking for feedback, photos, traces. Ideal if you want to walk flat: 3.5 metres of climb per kilometre, from Arad 185 kilometres between 90 and 110 metres, no pass, no bear. Ideal for Habsburg nostalgics: Timișoara's Baroque cathedral, the round village of Charlottenburg, the Vauban fortress of Arad, the Maria Theresa organ in Oradea, that is the imperial province on foot. And ideal for anyone who wants to reach the main axis from Timișoara airport in a fortnight — in Oradea you meet the Camino de România 1 and can continue east to Iași.

To be honest, though, it is not for you if you expect waymarking: Timiș and Arad are unmarked, Bihor only approved — you walk with your own map and the DB waypoints. Not for you in July and August: Banat and Crișana regularly get „Cod portocaliu de caniculă", orange heat warnings up to 40 degrees, and the plain has no shade. Not for you if you are looking for St James: no patronage, no pilgrim badge, no confraternity — the Banat was Ottoman for 170 years, what did not survive cannot be attested. And not for you if you think that in Oradea it continues to Hungary: the next Way of St James begins in Budapest, 250 kilometres to the west. Gaps like that you plan away beforehand, not on the way.

Route & landscape

You start in Timișoara — the cathedral on Piața Unirii (1736–1774, Baroque, dedicated to St George) is the obvious starting point, the association has not yet named an official one — and leave the city to the north-east via Giarmata-Vii and Giarmata, the first kilometres Elisabeta Turi walked on 7 September 2025. Then the land rises into the Dealurile Lipovei: Bencecu de Sus, Sălciua Nouă, Charlottenburg — the only round village in the Banat, founded in 1771 in the second Swabian migration, 210 metres inner diameter, church and school in the middle, „welches einen Kreis um eine im Mittelpunkt befindliche Maulbeerpflanzung macht", as Francesco Griselini wrote in 1780. Via Altringen and Bogda to 275 metres, the highest point of the route, down to Lipova on the Mureș: an Orthodox church from around 1338, a 400-year-old Ottoman bazaar and opposite the pilgrimage basilica of Maria Radna with its 71-metre towers. On through Zăbrani (Guttenbrunn, birthplace of Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn) and Fântânele to Arad.

From Arad it is plain: the Vauban fortress of 1763–1783, then Sânleani, Sântana, Șimand, Socodor, Chișineu-Criș on the Crișul Alb, Zerind — and Tămașda, home of the oldest standing Romanesque basilica in Transylvania, „Pons Thomae", mentioned in 1241 when the canon Rogerius fled here from the Mongols. Via Salonta, birthplace of the poet János Arany, 58 percent Hungarian, through Tulca, Ianoșda, Sititelec, Șumugiu, Mierlău and Cordău to Băile Felix, Romania's largest year-round spa resort, where in Lake Peța grows the thermal water lily found nowhere else — and the last eleven kilometres to Oradea, to the largest Baroque cathedral in the country. Surface: field tracks, village streets, tarmac; short climbs in the hills, none on the plain. Water in every village, shade rare.

Stages, terrain & difficulty

We divide the route into 15 stages with an average of 20.7 kilometres — Camino Ninja system, because the association has published neither stages nor GPX for this route; documented are only the walked stretches Timișoara–Giarmata Vii (2025) and Sălciua Nouă–Charlottenburg (14 km, 2026). The kilometres are estimated from our chain of waypoints and calibrated to the 310.3 kilometres of our route data, with allowances for the long field-track segments of the plain. Difficulty: the lowest in the Romanian network — 1,072 metres of climb, almost all in stages 2 to 4; the challenge is heat and navigation.

1. Timișoara – Giarmata (15.0 km) — cathedral on Piața Unirii, Giarmata-Vii; first walked kilometres (7 September 2025).
2. Giarmata – Charlottenburg (25.0 km) — Bencecu de Sus, Sălciua Nouă; round village of 1771, walking stretch of the 2026 launch event.
3. Charlottenburg – Bogda (13.0 km) — Altringen; colonist villages, highest point 275 m.
4. Bogda – Lipova (26.0 km) — Sintar; descent to the Mureș, basilica of Maria Radna, bazaar, Șoimoș castle.
5. Lipova – Fântânele (22.0 km) — Neudorf, Zăbrani (Guttenbrunn).
6. Fântânele – Arad (24.0 km) — plain, Arad fortress, Minorite cathedral.
7. Arad – Zimandu Nou (21.0 km) — Sânleani, Livada.
8. Zimandu Nou – Șimand (19.0 km) — Sântana.
9. Șimand – Socodor (18.0 km) — Criș plain.
10. Socodor – Chișineu-Criș (14.0 km) — Crișul Alb.
11. Chișineu-Criș – Tămașda (27.0 km) — Iermata Neagră, Zerind; Romanesque basilica Pons Thomae (1241). Longest stage.
12. Tămașda – Salonta (18.0 km) — Crișul Negru; birthplace of János Arany.
13. Salonta – Ianoșda (23.0 km) — Tulca.
14. Ianoșda – Mierlău (21.3 km) — Sititelec, Șumugiu.
15. Mierlău – Oradea (24.0 km) — Cordău, Băile Felix with the thermal water lily; basilica and bishop's palace of Oradea.

If you are faster, walk 13 stages (Timișoara–Sălciua Nouă 33 km on the first day, Arad–Sântana 31 km) — those too add up to 310.3. The route is strenuous not because of terrain but because of sun and logistics: between Arad and Oradea lie 185 kilometres of open plain without shade, the villages have shops but rarely guesthouses, and the waymarking is still missing. Start early, two litres of water, head covering, sort out quarters the day before — and arrange the stages so that you sleep in Lipova, Arad, Chișineu-Criș, Salonta and Băile Felix, where there are beds.

The paper that did not burn

Around 1327 Charles I Robert of Anjou had a monastery built in Radna on the Mureș for Franciscans from Bosnia. Two hundred years later the Banat came under Ottoman rule, the church vanished, the monks fled to a small chapel that a widow had built in the vineyards in 1520. There, from 1668, hung a picture: a cheap paper print of the Madonna with scapular, printed after 1660 in Bassano del Grappa, 477 by 705 millimetres, donated by an Italian merchant. In September 1695 Ottoman soldiers set fire to the chapel — „Flăcările au distrus și biserica din Radna" — and when the fire was out, the paper was unharmed. That is the whole founding story of Maria Radna, and it was enough: organised pilgrimages began in 1709, on 7 July 1756 the foundation stone of today's basilica was laid, on 9 June 1767 the picture moved in, in 1769–1771 the Viennese silversmith Joseph Moser framed it in silver. In 1832, 25,000 pilgrims came at Whitsun, 20,000 for the Nativity of Mary; in 1935 73,000 were counted in the year. In 1992 Pope John Paul II raised the church to a minor basilica. Today more than 2,500 votive pictures hang in the museum — each a story of someone who believes they were helped. And pilgrims come in three languages: Romanian, Hungarian, German.

The Camino de România 3 has no St James, but it has this. To be honest, that is not a shortcoming but the history of this landscape: the Banat was Ottoman from 1552 until the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718, the Latin church largely destroyed, the shell that lies in graves elsewhere in Transylvania is missing here — what did not survive cannot be attested. What came afterwards was the Habsburg resettlement, and you see it village by village between Giarmata and Arad: Charlottenburg, laid out in 1771 by Carl Samuel Neumann Edler von Buchholt, the only round village in the Banat, 210 metres in diameter, today 111 inhabitants and many holiday homes; Zăbrani, which as Guttenbrunn produced Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn in 1852, the chronicler of the Banat Swabians; in Arad the Minorite cathedral of 1902–1911, where sermons are preached on Sundays in Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and German. And in the Criș plain the counterpart: Tămașda, „Pons Thomae", the oldest and largest standing Romanesque basilica in Transylvania, mentioned in 1241 when the canon Rogerius fled here from the Mongols and later wrote the „Carmen miserabile" about it. It survived the storm — and almost failed at the land registry: after the agrarian reform of 1920/21 the land went to a private owner, the building served as a chicken coop, „stă să se ruineze în timp de pace", until a foundation obtained a 49-year concession and secured tower and choir.

So this route without St James reaches its destination, and the destination is the strongest argument: Oradea was „the Hungarian Compostela" in the 14th century. Ladislaus I died on 29 July 1095; according to legend his body travelled „on its own, unassisted by any draft animal" to Várad, was buried in his own cathedral, and Várad was „a place of pilgrimage even before the sanctification of the king in 1192". At his tomb trials by ordeal were held in the 13th century — the Regestrum Varadinense preserves hundreds of them —, every new king made the pilgrimage here, and in 1406 the skull survived a fire, the reliquary did not. Today the largest Baroque cathedral in Romania stands there (1752–1780, marble from Vașcău and Carrara, basilica since 1991), with a silver-gilt herm containing part of the skull, carried in procession on his feast day. So the Camino de România 3 does not end at a waystation but at a pilgrimage destination in its own right — just not that of St James. To him, says the marker in Iași, it is 4,500 kilometres. From here it is still 4,100 — and the first 250 of them nobody has yet marked.

Highlights along the way

• Timișoara — European Capital of Culture 2023; cathedral on Piața Unirii, foundation stone 1736, completed 1774, Central European Baroque, dedicated to St George — the obvious but not yet official starting point.
• Charlottenburg (Șarlota) — only round village in the Banat, founded 1771, 210 m inner diameter, church and school at the centre; Griselini 1780: „welches einen Kreis um eine im Mittelpunkt befindliche Maulbeerpflanzung macht"; 165 m altitude, around 111 inhabitants.
• Lipova — first recorded 1245; Orthodox church Adormirea Maicii Domnului from around 1338 with frescoes from around 1500; Bazarul turcesc, around 400 years old, unique in Romania; Șoimoș castle (1278) above the Mureș.
• Basilica of Maria Radna — paper icon of 1668, unharmed in the fire of September 1695; foundation stone 7 July 1756, consecration 1820, minor basilica 1992; towers 71 m, more than 2,500 votive pictures; feasts 25 March, 16 July, Whitsun, 8 September.
• Zăbrani (Guttenbrunn) — colonist village, birthplace of Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn (22 October 1852), the chronicler of the Banat Swabians.
• Arad — Cetatea Aradului, Vauban star fortress 1763–1783 after Ferdinand Philipp von Harsch; 6 October 1849 execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad; Minorite cathedral Sfântul Anton de Padova (1902–1911, tower 56 m), services in four languages.
• Tămașda (Pons Thomae) — oldest standing Romanesque basilica in Transylvania, „cea mai veche biserică romanică din Transilvania rămasă încă în picioare"; mentioned 1241 during the Mongol storm (Rogerius, „Carmen miserabile"); chicken coop in the 20th c., today secured by concession.
• Salonta (Nagyszalonta) — first recorded 1214 as „Zolonta"; birthplace of the poet János Arany (1817–1882); 58 percent Hungarian population.
• Băile Felix — Romania's largest year-round spa resort, thermal springs 25–30 °C; thermal water lily Nymphaea lotus var. thermalis, grows only in Lake Peța, natural monument since 1931.
• Oradea (Nagyvárad, Großwardein) — „the Hungarian Compostela" of the 14th century: tomb of Ladislaus I († 1095, canonised 1192), trials by ordeal of the Regestrum Varadinense; basilica 1752–1780, „cel mai mare monument baroc din țară", herm with skull relic, Maria Theresa organ; Art Nouveau city; connection to the Camino de România 1.
• Timișoara, St Roch church — church and statue of St Roch, patron of pilgrims and plague saint; another St Roch statue stands at the Maria Radna basilica (association source).
• Oradea, St James altar — in the monastery of the Grieving Mother (Mănăstirea „Maica Îndurerată", 1741) an altar dedicated to St James, 1808 — the only trace of St James on the route (association source).

How pilgrims reach this route

The Camino de România 3 is itself a feeder — it links the west of Romania to the network. Timișoara has the most convenient access of all seven starting points: international airport with direct flights from Germany, Austria and Italy, airport bus E4 to the main station for 4 RON (approx. €0.80), rail to Arad, Budapest, Vienna and București. On foot you cannot get here from Hungary or Serbia — there is no Way of St James that arrives in Timișoara.

If you think of the route in reverse, you come along the Camino de România 1 to Oradea — as the group „Pelerinii speranței" did in summer 2025, arriving in Timișoara on 8 August after five weeks from Iași — and walk from there west into the Banat. The Hungarian Szent Jakab út (Camino Húngaro, Budapest–Lébény) and the Camino Benedictus lie 250 kilometres further west and have no connection to the border; mentioned as context, without a CMS page. Anyone walking the Mária Út from Mariazell to Șumuleu Ciuc crosses the Romanian network further east in Szekler Land, not here.

Continuing on?

Yes — eastwards. In Oradea you meet the Camino de România 1, the main axis of the Romanian network: over the karst of the Crișul Repede to Cluj-Napoca, through the Trascău to Alba Iulia and Sebeș with its St James chapel of 1420, to Sibiu, Brașov, through Szekler Land and over the Nemira into Moldavia to Iași, around 1,210 kilometres. From there the feeders continue: the Camino de România 2 to the Danube, the Camino de România 4 through the Olt gorge, the Camino de România 5 via Șumuleu Ciuc. Anyone who reverses direction and stops in Timișoara has experienced the network from its western edge.

Westwards, to Santiago, nothing leads at present. 15 kilometres beyond Oradea lies the border at Borș, without controls since 1 January 2025; beyond it there is no marked Way of St James as far as Budapest. A new border crossing Salonta–Békéscsaba has been decided since April 2023, with a target year of 2026, but whether it is open we could not verify — and it is not a pilgrim route in any case. If you want the Compostela, you fly: the Camino Francés is reachable from Timișoara or Budapest with a flight to Spain. The marker in Iași says 4,500 kilometres; the Camino de România 3 delivers 310.3 of them and the connection to the axis — the rest nobody delivers yet.

Preparation & practical matters

Best time: April to June and September to October. In July and August the Romanian weather service regularly issues orange heat warnings up to 40 degrees for Banat and Crișana — the plain has no shade. Waymarking and navigation: none yet — the waymarking in Bihor county has been approved since 15 December 2025 (yellow arrow and shell as in the rest of the network), in Timiș and Arad it is pending. You walk with the waypoints of our route data and offline maps; the easiest way is to plan it directly in the Camino Ninja app together with your stages and accommodation. Ask the association (office@caminodesantiago.ro, western representative Elisabeta Turi) for the current state — it changes monthly. Credencial: „un fel de pașaport de pelerin", issued by the association since 2018, 10 RON (approx. €2), by e-mail to office@caminoromania.org; stamps in churches and town halls, as the 2025 group did. Language: Romanian, much Hungarian in the north, still German in Arad and the colonist villages; English in the towns. Emergency: 112. The association confirms: you can ask for a stamp wherever you stop — but there are no custom pilgrim stamps like on the Camino in Spain or Portugal; the only stamp made specially for pilgrims is at the hostel Casa Genoveva in Câmpulung Muscel (Camino de România 2). Contact: if you want to walk the route, write to the association at office@caminoromania.org — it puts you in touch with its local representatives, who can tell you about accommodation, the route and everything else; their contacts are also listed at caminodesantiago.ro/contact/.

Accommodation: No hostel network. Guesthouses and hotels exist in Timișoara, Lipova, Arad, Chișineu-Criș, Salonta, Băile Felix and Oradea; in the villages in between — Charlottenburg has holiday homes, Bogda, Socodor, Tămașda, Ianoșda little to nothing — you ask the parish house or municipality, in Romanian or Hungarian, the day before. Food: shops in every village, water everywhere; inns only in the towns. Packing list: light shoes for tarmac and field tracks, head covering, sunscreen, two litres of water capacity, rain gear, power bank, offline maps, cash in lei. Membership: APCS annual fee 50 RON (approx. €10), students and pensioners 25 RON (approx. €5), as of September 2026.

What the route costs

To be honest, this is one of the cheapest routes we describe. All amounts as of September 2026, exchange rate 1 EUR ≈ 5.0 RON. Documented: APCS membership fee 50 RON (approx. €10); Timișoara single public-transport ticket 4 RON (approx. €0.80), day ticket 15 RON (approx. €3), airport bus E4 4 RON (approx. €0.80), vaporetto on the Bega 1 RON (approx. €0.20), city bike hire free; basilica of Maria Radna and Oradea cathedral free, donation requested. Guide values: guesthouse in Lipova, Arad, Salonta 120–200 RON (approx. €24–40) for two, hotel in Timișoara or Oradea 250–400 RON (approx. €50–80), Băile Felix 200–350 RON (approx. €40–70), guest room or parish house in a village 60–120 RON (approx. €12–24) or for a donation; set lunch 30–50 RON (approx. €6–10), coffee 10–13 RON (approx. €2–2.60). We give no rail fares for Timișoara–Arad–Oradea — check CFR tariffs at bilete.cfrcalatori.ro.

Realistic daily budget: frugal with parish house, guest room and self-catering 100–160 RON (approx. €20–32), mid-range with guesthouse and a hot meal 180–280 RON (approx. €36–56), comfortable with hotel and restaurant in the towns 350–500 RON (approx. €70–100). For 15 stages reckon roughly 2,500–4,500 RON (approx. €500–900) on the ground; the flight to Timișoara comes on top.

Getting there

To the start (Timișoara): Timișoara airport (TSR) with direct flights from Germany, Austria and Italy; airport bus E4/E4b to the main station, 4 RON (approx. €0.80). Rail from Budapest (via Arad), Vienna and București; from Serbia via Vršac. The cathedral on Piața Unirii is 20 minutes on foot from the main station.

Along the way and from the finish (Oradea): stations in Timișoara, Giarmata, Lipova, Arad, Sântana, Chișineu-Criș, Salonta and Oradea — the Arad–Oradea railway accompanies the route across the plain, almost every stage has an exit. Buses from all county towns. From Oradea you fly from Oradea (OMR) or take the train to Budapest (around four hours), Cluj, Brașov, București; the border at Borș is control-free.

• Romanian railways: bilete.cfrcalatori.ro — CFR Călători, Timișoara – Arad – Oradea
• Info: caminodesantiago.ro — Chronicle, credencial
• Timișoara airport: aerotim.ro — bus E4 to the main station
• Basilica of Maria Radna: mariaradna.com — pilgrimages, museum
• City of Timișoara: visit-timisoara.com — public transport, tickets