Innviertler Jakobsweg

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: St. Oswald bei Haslach in the upper Mühlviertel, 747 m, on the Czech border / Salzburg, Old Town at the cathedral (km 236.0)
• Length: 236.5 km, about 52 km of it in Bavaria
• Duration: 11 stages, realistically 10 to 11 days; Passau–Salzburg alone takes 6 to 7 days
• Elevation: ↗ 3,382 m / ↘ 3,697 m
• Highest point: 812 m at km 44.5 in the village of Pfarrkirchen im Mühlkreis; lowest point 296 m on the Inn in Passau
• Landscape: granite ridges of the Mühlviertel, the Danube slopes of the Passau region, floodplain forest and levees along the Inn, the rolling Innviertel hills, the Salzburg Lake District
• Operator / Waymarking: no single operator; regionally marked sections with the yellow shell on a blue background, signposted in the Mühlviertel as Jakobsweg Oberes Mühlviertel, with varying signage on the Bavarian kilometers
• Traces of St. James: parish of St. Oswald, founded on St. James's Day 1261; town parish church of St. James in Rohrbach (km 20.5); parish church of St. James the Greater in Obertrum (km 211.1)
• Accommodation: no pilgrim hostels; pilgrim rooms at Schlägl Abbey, otherwise inns, guesthouses and private rooms, hostels in Salzburg
• Connecting routes: South Bohemian Way from the north at the border, Jakobsweg Österreich on the same track from Eugendorf, Voralpiner Jakobsweg from Salzburg
• Best time: May to October; in April there can still be snow on the Mühlviertel heights

Overview

This trail starts where another one ends and finishes at a cathedral. In between lie 236.5 kilometers with three faces, and rivers draw the dividing lines: the first 89 kilometers through the upper Mühlviertel and over the Bavarian Danube slopes bring around 20 meters of climbing per kilometer—more than the Camino Francés. The 56 kilometers along the Inn that follow are almost flat at just under 7 meters per kilometer, with the Innviertel hills and the Salzburg Lake District beyond. The highest point isn't a pass but a village at 812 meters; the lowest lies on the banks of the Inn in Passau. And the name is an understatement: a trail called "Innviertler" spends about 52 of its kilometers in Bavaria.

Along the way, monasteries come closer than usual on a pilgrim route. Schlägl Abbey appears after seven kilometers, Reichersberg Abbey and the collegiate foundation of Mattsee stand right on the trail, plus three Marian shrines. What you won't find are pilgrim hostels—you sleep in inns and book ahead. In return, the network is seamless: from the north the link from Bohemia, from Eugendorf the same track as the Jakobsweg Österreich. A trail that begins on St. James's Day and belongs to Mary in between.

Other Names

On the Camino Ninja map the trail is called Innviertler Jakobsweg, named after the region at its center rather than its start or finish. Strictly speaking, only about 41 percent of the route earns the name—just over 99 kilometers in the Innviertel; the rest is Mühlviertel, Bavaria and Salzburg. Locally the northern section is signposted as the Jakobsweg Oberes Mühlviertel, which also passes Schlägl Abbey; between Eugendorf and Salzburg the same track additionally carries the name Jakobsweg Österreich. The Czech operator of the northern feeder route simply describes the continuation as a direction: "from where it continues towards Santiago via Passau."

And one clarification: Braunau am Inn is not on the trail; the route crosses the district 13 to 20 kilometers east of the town.

Who It's Ideal For—and Who It's Not So Ideal For

Ideal if you have ten or eleven days and want a trail that's different in each half: up front the granite ridges of the Mühlviertel with a Premonstratensian abbey after two hours, in the middle Passau—not just a stage town here but an event, with its cathedral and the confluence of three rivers—and at the end abbeys, lakes and pilgrimage churches all the way to Salzburg. Ideal, too, if you like your monasteries without detours: the Schlägl Abbey brewery has been brewing since 1580, longer than most Camino routes have been waymarked. And ideal if you want to walk just half: Passau–Salzburg is 147 kilometers and easy to reach by train.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you're looking for hostel life: on these 236 kilometers there isn't a single pilgrim hostel, apart from the pilgrim rooms at Schlägl Abbey. You stay in inns and private rooms for 60 to 90 € and book in advance, not on the go. It's also not for you if you like evenly paced days or expect wilderness: 127 named places in 236 kilometers, one every 1.9 kilometers on average—this is cultivated countryside with farm roads and asphalt, especially in the Inn valley. And if you're after pilgrim camaraderie, you'll find silence here more often than groups.

Route & Landscape

Mühlviertel and the Danube slopes (km 0–89): You start 747 meters up at the border near St. Oswald bei Haslach, on the watershed between the North Sea and the Black Sea, and after seven kilometers reach Aigen im Mühlkreis with Schlägl Abbey. Then you head west via Rohrbach in Oberösterreich (km 20.5) and Sarleinsbach (km 33.9) up to Pfarrkirchen im Mühlkreis (km 44.4) and the high point. Past Neustift im Mühlkreis (km 52.4) you cross into Bavaria and walk high above the Danube via Untergriesbach (km 63.5) and Thyrnau (km 79.7) down to Passau (km 89.0), where the Danube, Inn and Ilz meet.

Inn, hills and lakes (km 89–236.5): After that, 56 kilometers cost you almost nothing. The trail follows the Bavarian bank of the Inn via Neuburg am Inn (km 98.4), crosses the river at Neuhaus and is back in Austria at Schärding (km 105.9). Heading south through the Innviertel, you pass Suben barely a kilometer off the trail, then go via Reichersberg (km 129.2) and Obernberg am Inn (km 132.7) to Altheim (km 145.0). There the trail leaves the Inn and climbs into the hills to Maria Schmolln (km 167.5), then via Mattighofen (km 177.0) into the Lake District to Mattsee (km 207.2) and Obertrum am See (km 211.1). In Eugendorf (km 222.5) it meets the Jakobsweg Österreich and runs with it via Plain-Kemating and the Basilica of Maria Plain (km 231.5) to Salzburg (km 236.0).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

Eleven stages are the right rhythm: day two is the only real mountain day, and days 7 and 9 are short because that's where Reichersberg and Maria Schmolln lie. Distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 236.5 km; elevation figures are from our track.

1. St. Oswald bei Haslach → Rohrbach in Oberösterreich (20.5 km) — ↗ 426 m / ↘ 555 m. A gentle start over the granite ridges, Schlägl Abbey after seven kilometers, the church of St. James at the finish.
2. Rohrbach in Oberösterreich → Pfarrkirchen im Mühlkreis (23.9 km) — ↗ 758 m / ↘ 549 m. The toughest day of the trail, via Sarleinsbach and Putzleinsdorf; at the finish, the high point, right in the middle of the village.
3. Pfarrkirchen im Mühlkreis → Untergriesbach (19.1 km) — ↗ 313 m / ↘ 564 m. Past Neustift you cross into Bavaria, then walk high above the Danube.
4. Untergriesbach → Passau (25.5 km) — ↗ 271 m / ↘ 530 m. Through the Aubachmühle valley, past Thyrnau and on a long descent to the City of Three Rivers.
5. Passau → Schärding (16.9 km) — ↗ 106 m / ↘ 99 m. Flat along the Inn; at Neuburg the Mariensteg footbridge to Wernstein, and you cross the border at Neuhaus am Inn.
6. Schärding → Reichersberg (23.3 km) — ↗ 167 m / ↘ 129 m. Along the Inn, past the former abbey of Suben, with Reichersberg Abbey at the finish.
7. Reichersberg → Altheim (15.8 km) — ↗ 103 m / ↘ 84 m. A short culture day across the market square of Obernberg am Inn.
8. Altheim → Maria Schmolln (22.5 km) — ↗ 458 m / ↘ 263 m. Out of the Inn valley and up into the hills to the pilgrimage church.
9. Maria Schmolln → Munderfing (16.3 km) — ↗ 192 m / ↘ 283 m. Deliberately short, through Mattighofen, the town behind the M in KTM.
10. Munderfing → Obertrum am See (27.3 km) — ↗ 266 m / ↘ 225 m. The longest stage, into the Lake District, with Mattsee's collegiate church right on the trail.
11. Obertrum am See → Salzburg (25.4 km) — ↗ 324 m / ↘ 401 m. From Eugendorf on the track of the Jakobsweg Österreich, via Maria Plain down to the cathedral.

Nothing here is technically difficult; what tires you out is the up-and-down of the Mühlviertel and the descent to Passau. If you want to do it in ten days, combine stages at the end: about 30 kilometers to Mattsee and 29 to Salzburg.

A Marian Way That Begins on St. James's Day

"Urkundlich belegt ist die Gründung der Pfarre St. Oswald am 25. Juli 1261" (the founding of the parish of St. Oswald on July 25, 1261, is documented), notes the local chronicle—and July 25 is St. James's Day. So the trail begins in a parish with a St. James date, and after the first day it stands before the town parish church of St. James in Rohrbach, built by Carlo Antonio Carlone between 1697 and 1700; in 1710 the Linz sculptor Leopold Mühl carved the apostle as a candle-bearing angel on the high altar, and the largest bell is called Jakobus. On the last stage comes the parish church of St. James the Greater in Obertrum, with a late Gothic west tower from 1499 and a figure of St. James in the apse. Two churches of St. James in 236 kilometers—one on the first evening, the other on the last.

In between, the trail belongs to someone else: Mary, three times over. Above Passau's Innstadt stands Mariahilf, built from 1624 to 1627, with a covered stairway from 1628 and 321 steps. Its miraculous image is a copy that a Passau painter made in 1620 of the Mariahilf painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder. When the Ottomans besieged Vienna in 1683, Emperor Leopold I fled to Passau and prayed here; the relief army went into battle crying "Maria hilf!" (Mary, help!), and the image became the Habsburgs' miraculous icon. The Cranach original has hung since 1650 in St. James's Cathedral in Innsbruck—on the Jakobsweg Österreich, which picks you up in Eugendorf.

Maria Schmolln (km 167.5) began in 1735 with a farmer who hung an image of Mary on a tree to pray for his missing son; the locals built today's pilgrimage church themselves from 1860 to 1863, and Franciscans arrived in 1864. And Maria Plain above Salzburg, built from 1671 to 1674, guards an image that survived a bakery fire in Regen in 1633. That Mozart wrote his Coronation Mass for Maria Plain appears in many guidebooks—according to scholars, a Mozart enthusiast simply made it up in 1907. Honestly, that's the most beautiful legend on the trail, precisely because it isn't one.

Bavarian Until 1779: A Trail Across a Shifted Border

That the Innviertler Jakobsweg crosses the national border twice looks like a planning error—it's history. Until 1779 the Innviertel belonged to Bavaria. Then the Peace of Teschen ended the War of the Bavarian Succession, and the regional history records it dryly: "Mit der Ratifizierung des Friedens von Teschen, der den Bayerischen Erbfolgekrieg beendete, kamen die östlich von Inn und Salzach gelegenen Gebiete des kurfürstlichen Rentamtes Burghausen 1779 zu Oberösterreich." (With the ratification of the Peace of Teschen, which ended the War of the Bavarian Succession, the territories of the electoral district of Burghausen east of the Inn and Salzach passed to Upper Austria in 1779.) Napoleon reversed that once more in 1810, and only on May 1, 1816, did the Innviertel become Austrian for good. Schärding bears the scars: during the war the town burned down on April 26, 1809; it had received its town charter from the Wittelsbachs as early as 1316.

The border shift decided the fate of the monasteries along the way. Reichersberg Abbey, founded around 1084 and brought to its peak under Provost Gerhoch from 1132 to 1169, passed to Austria in 1779 and so escaped Bavarian secularization; its canons still live there today. The neighboring abbey of Suben, by contrast, was dissolved by Emperor Joseph II on March 6, 1784, and has been a prison since 1865—the only monastery on the trail you can't get into, and the only one you can't simply walk out of. At Neuburg am Inn, the reorganization of 1803 split Neuburg and Wernstein between two states; since 2006 they have been reconnected by the Mariensteg, a footbridge a few minutes off the trail.

Highlights Along the Way

• Schlägl Abbey (near Aigen, km 7.0) — refounded in 1218 as a Premonstratensian abbey after the Cistercians had failed around 1203; abbey brewery since 1580, pilgrim rooms with a credencial.
• Town parish church of St. James, Rohrbach (km 20.5) — Baroque building by Carlo Antonio Carlone, 1697 to 1700, with a 75-meter tower; Rohrbach has been a market town since 1320.
• Pfarrkirchen im Mühlkreis (km 44.4) — the trail's high point, right in the village; its church of Our Lady was remodeled in Baroque style by the Carlone family after fires in 1678 and 1682.
• Passau (km 89.0) — a diocese since 739, St. Stephen's Cathedral rebuilt in Baroque style after the city fire of 1662, home to the world's largest cathedral organ; the confluence of three rivers and, above the Inn, Mariahilf with its 321 steps.
• Neuburg am Inn Castle (km 98.4) — built around 1050, destroyed in 1310, rebuilt by the Habsburgs; below it, the Mariensteg.
• Schärding (km 105.9) — a Baroque town with the colorful Silberzeile row of houses on the Oberer Stadtplatz.
• Reichersberg Abbey (km 129.2) — an active community of Augustinian canons above the Inn, rebuilt in Baroque style after the fire of 1624, right on the trail.
• Maria Schmolln (km 167.5) — a chapel of grace with a glass floor over the spot where the first tree stood.
• Mattighofen (km 177.0) — KTM stands for Kronreif and Trunkenpolz Mattighofen: a metalworking shop in 1934, motorcycles from 1954, its own museum since 2019.
• Mattsee Collegiate Foundation (km 207.2) — founded around 765 by Duke Tassilo III, a collegiate foundation since about 1045 and the oldest existing community of secular priests in Austria; its archive holds a charter from 860.
• Parish church of St. James, Obertrum (km 211.1) — a church of St. James with a tower from 1499, renewed in an Art Nouveau spirit after a fire from 1917 and reconsecrated in 1925.
• Basilica of Maria Plain (km 231.5) — a pilgrimage church high above Salzburg, consecrated in 1674, its miraculous image crowned in 1751, a basilica minor since 1952.
• Salzburg Cathedral (km 236.0) — the finish, consecrated in 1628 to Saints Rupert and Virgil, not St. James; on October 16, 1944, its dome collapsed in a bombing raid.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

The most natural approach comes from the north: the South Bohemian Way runs 215.4 kilometers from Vlašim through South Bohemia to the Upper Austrian border, where this trail begins. If you walk it—and the East Bohemian Way before it—you'll have about 567 kilometers behind you from the Polish border to Passau, and just over 714 to Salzburg.

If you're not coming from Bohemia, travel via Linz and take the Mühlkreisbahn railway to Aigen-Schlägl; the station is 1.2 kilometers from the trail at kilometer 7.6. You can make up the first seven kilometers from the border on foot or by bus. The second major entry point is Passau at kilometer 89: the main station is a ten-minute walk from the trail, with long-distance trains on the Nuremberg–Vienna line.

Continue the pilgrimage?

The trail ends in Salzburg, but you're already walking in company before that: from Eugendorf the track is identical to the Jakobsweg Österreich, 14 shared kilometers to the finish. In Salzburg you have two options:

• Jakobsweg Österreich — 853 kilometers in total, continuing via Innsbruck and the Arlberg to Rankweil
• Voralpiner Jakobsweg — 255.7 kilometers through the Bavarian Alpine foothills to Hohenpeißenberg, where the Münchner Jakobsweg takes over

The two routes share the track as far as Bad Reichenhall, and only split there.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on all Camino routes in Austria and Germany, you'll need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to stay in pilgrim lodgings such as Schlägl Abbey and to collect your stamps on the way toward Santiago. It's best to order it online in advance so it reaches you in time for the start of your trip. Because lodgings are few and far between and not pilgrim-specific, plan your days ahead—the easiest way is right in the Camino Ninja App, where you can put together your stages and plan suitable accommodation at the same time.

Accommodation and food. This is where the trail takes work: no hostels, but inns, guesthouses and private rooms, many with a weekly closing day. Call ahead. You'll reliably find food in the market towns of Rohrbach, Untergriesbach, Passau, Schärding, Altheim, Mattighofen, Mattsee and Seekirchen—roughly every 20 to 30 kilometers.

Season and border. The trail is best walked from May to October. The opening section lies between 600 and 812 meters, and in April there can be wet snow up there; the Inn kilometers are shadeless and hot in high summer. You cross an internal EU border twice—nothing dramatic, but pack your ID.

What the journey will cost you

This is a trail in Austria and Bavaria, so don't expect Spanish prices. Inns and guesthouses cost 60 to 90 € per person with breakfast, the pilgrim room at Schlägl Abbey around 41 € with a credencial, and in Salzburg there are hostel beds from about 24 € (as of October 2026).

Budget 70 to 95 € per day for accommodation, breakfast and two meals, or more like 55 to 70 € per person if you share a double room. Over eleven days that comes to roughly 800 to 1,050 €, not counting travel to and from the trail.

Getting Here

To the start. Take the train to Linz, then the Mühlkreisbahn to Aigen-Schlägl, 1.2 kilometers from the trail; Linz Airport is about 39 kilometers away. Check current service on the regional line before you travel.

From the finish. Salzburg is an international hub: Munich in about an hour and a half, Vienna in about two and a half hours, and on the last stage you walk right past the main station yourself.

• Rail Austria: oebb.at — Linz, Aigen-Schlägl, Schärding, Salzburg
• Rail Germany: bahn.de — Passau and long-distance trains