Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Eichstätt

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: St. Jakob on Jakobsplatz, Nuremberg / Eichstätt Cathedral
• Length: 88.8 km
• Duration: 5 stages, avg. 17.8 km (Camino Ninja division); the portals reckon with 4 days
• Elevation: ↗ 935 m / ↘ 854 m — the first 28 kilometers stay below 370 meters, then the Jura plateau
• Highest point: 560 m at km 56.7 in Waizenhofen; lowest point 310 m on the Pegnitz in Nuremberg, right after the start
• Stages: 5 — Camino Ninja system; every stage town with documented beds; for the ambitious also in 4 days (Harrlach – Eysölden – Morsbach)
• Landscape: Lorenzer Reichswald on sand, Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal, Rothsee and Main-Donau-Kanal, Jura plateau of the southern Frankenalb with juniper heaths, Anlauter valley
• Operator: Roth district (route built as a LEADER project 2000–2006), Fränkische St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft Würzburg, pilgrim office of the Diocese of Eichstätt
• Waymarking: stylized yellow scallop on a blue ground; in the northern part a yellow scallop with crossed staffs; in places additionally „NA“ (Nürnberg-Altmühltal-Weg) and the bishop's staff
• Traces of St. James: St. Jakob Nürnberg, church of the Teutonic Order since 1209; figure and depiction of St. James in the high altar of St. Johannes der Täufer in Hilpoltstein (1656); Willibald in the scallop niche of Eichstätt Cathedral (1514)
• Accommodation: inns, hotels, guesthouses and holiday apartments — not a single classic pilgrim hostel documented along the route
• Connecting routes: You share the first twelve kilometers with the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm; near Worzeldorf the Oberpfälzer Jakobsweg crosses on its way to Stein, where the Mittelfränkischer Jakobsweg begins; in Eichstätt you meet the Ostbayerischer Jakobsweg
• Connection to Santiago: from Eichstätt on the Ostbayerischer Jakobsweg to Neresheim, on to Ulm and across Lake Constance into Switzerland
• Best time: May to October; the juniper heaths bloom from late May to early June, in September paths and inns are empty

Overview

Nuremberg is the railway station among Germany's St. James towns: routes come in here from Bohemia, from Upper Franconia, from Saxony, and run out again to the west and south — and this one takes the exit to the south. From St. Jakob on Jakobsplatz, church of the Teutonic Order since February 20, 1209, it goes through the Lorenzer Reichswald, across two canals from two centuries, past the Rothsee to Hilpoltstein and then up onto the Jura plateau, where juniper grows on limestone and the water vanishes into the karst. 88.8 kilometers, 935 meters of ascent, highest point 560 meters: this is not a mountain route, this is a route that leads in five days from a big city to a bishop's town and never once hurries.

The destination is the reason this route exists. In the Middle Ages Eichstätt was not visited for the sake of Santiago but for its own sake: for the graves of the siblings Willibald and Walburga and for a replica of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, built before 1166 and to this day the best-preserved of its kind from the Romanesque period in Germany. Whoever could not get to Jerusalem went to Eichstätt. To be honest, the trail itself is younger than the brochures make it sound — in the early 2000s the Roth district had it marked as a funded project, and whether medieval pilgrims really passed through Hilpoltstein and Thalmässing, nobody knows. What you find at the end is genuine all the same: a bishop in a scallop niche, a tomb from the 12th century and an altar whose Jerusalem contains the city you started from.

Other Names

All its operators call the route simply the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Eichstätt — that is how the Fränkische St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft lists it, and so does the Roth district office. The Altmühltal Nature Park, the town of Eichstätt and the market town of Titting write Jakobsweg von Nürnberg nach Eichstätt; the trail is the same. On the signs you will also meet the abbreviation „NA“: that is the Nürnberg-Altmühltal-Weg, a hiking trail in its own right whose markings accompany the Way of St. James in places, which is why the two are often mentioned in the same breath. And the pilgrim office of the Diocese of Eichstätt sees it above all as the feeder from the Nuremberg hub to the Ostbayerischer Jakobsweg.

Two confusions deserve a sentence. The Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm starts at the same church and, according to the Camino Ninja map, runs along the same trail for twelve kilometers — only beyond Worzeldorf does it split off toward Schwabach and Gunzenhausen; whoever follows the wrong yellow scallop there ends up in Ulm instead of Eichstätt. And the Oberpfälzer Jakobsweg from Tillyschanz crosses your route with its white scallop at kilometer 9.7, shortly before Worzeldorf, on its way to Stein. Your scallop is yellow and blue — most of the time.

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

Ideal if you are looking for a first Way of St. James of your own that fits into a long weekend and still has a real destination: at the end there is no town sign but the grave of a diocese's founder who himself was in the Holy Land from 723 to 727. Ideal if you arrive and leave by train — Nuremberg is an ICE hub, Eichstätt hangs hourly on the Nuremberg–Munich line, Hilpoltstein in the middle has its own station, so you can also spread the route over a year in day-sized pieces. Ideal if history in layers appeals to you: over 88.8 kilometers you cross two canals, the Roman Limes, a Celtic history village, a Teutonic Order property from 1209 and a Way of the Cross from 1591. And ideal if you want to ease in gently — the first 28 kilometers stay below 370 meters.

To be honest, though, it's not for you if you are after hostel romance: along the entire route not a single classic pilgrim hostel is documented, no mattress dormitory, no donation box — you sleep at the inn and pay inn prices. Not for you if you need solitude, because the first stages are the recreation area of half a million Nurembergers, and on a summer Sunday at the Rothsee there are more beach towels than pilgrim staffs about. Not for you if asphalt gets you down — according to outdooractive, the opening stage has almost 39 percent asphalt and 12 percent road, and only from the third stage does it tip toward gravel and natural paths. And not for you if you expect seamless signposting: three marking systems overlap here, and whoever sets off without a GPX track will puzzle at least once in the Reichswald.

Route & Landscape

The route does in three acts what the Frankenalb has to offer. Act one: sand. From St. Jakob you head out of the old town, across the Pegnitz — at 310 meters the lowest point of the route — and across the Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal, King Ludwig's 19th-century waterway, at lock 64 into the Lorenzer Reichswald: pines on sandy soil, Nuremberg's old timber reserve, today a recreation area. Via Worzeldorf (km 10.6), Sorg, Furth (km 20.1) and Harrlach you stay practically level for 28 kilometers, from 312 meters in Nuremberg to 362 in Brunnau. Act two: water and the first climb. Beyond Brunnau lie the Wartstein ruin, the Rothsee and the Main-Donau-Kanal, then Hilpoltstein (km 38.3) with the castle ruin above the rooftops — and from here the route picks up: Marquardsholz 428 meters, Patersholz 435, a dip to Löffelhof and Pyras, then Eysölden and Stauf with its castle ruin at 488 meters, via Stetten down to Thalmässing (km 54.1).

Act three: the plateau. From Thalmässing the route climbs in two and a half kilometers to Waizenhofen, 560 meters — the highest point, without a summit cross but with wide views. After that you stay up top, in the landscape for which the Altmühltal Nature Park is famous: dry grassland, juniper heaths, karst, slab limestone. Via Landersdorf and Esselberg the route tips into the dry valleys — Morsbach, Emsing, Altdorf (km 71.5) in the Anlauter valley — and rises one last time via Götzelshard (521 m) and Buchenhüll onto the plateau above Eichstätt. The final two and a half kilometers then drop around 120 meters into the Altmühl valley to the cathedral. Surface: asphalt and forest track at first, gravel and natural path toward the end; according to outdooractive the asphalt share falls from almost 39 percent on the first stage to 18 percent on the last. The route gets better as it goes.

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

We divide the route into 5 stages averaging 17.8 kilometers — Camino Ninja system, in which every stage town is on the map and has documented beds. The kilometers come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to the 88.8 kilometers of our route data. Difficulty: moderate — nowhere technically demanding, but the third and fourth stages have all the ups and downs of the plateau; the portals rate the long stages as „schwer“ (hard) because of the distance, but you will feel none of that on the ground.

1. Nürnberg – Furth (20.1 km) — St. Jakob, Pegnitz (310 m), Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal with lock 64, Lorenzer Reichswald, Worzeldorf (km 10.6, crossing of the Oberpfälzer Jakobsweg), Sorg; Furth in the market town of Schwanstetten. The longest stage, but the flattest — 312 → 352 m.
2. Furth – Hilpoltstein (18.2 km) — Harrlach, Brunnau, Wartstein ruin, Rothsee, Main-Donau-Kanal; Hilpoltstein with castle ruin and St. Johannes der Täufer (figure of St. James in the high altar). Station on the Gredl-Bahn.
3. Hilpoltstein – Thalmässing (15.8 km) — Marquardsholz, Patersholz, Löffelhof, Pyras, Eysölden (church of St. Thomas und Ägidius), Stauf castle ruin (488 m), Stetten; Fundreich Thalmässing. The shortest stage with the most ups and downs.
4. Thalmässing – Altdorf (Titting) (17.4 km) — climb to Waizenhofen (560 m, highest point at km 56.7), Landersdorf history village, Esselberg, Morsbach, Emsing in the Anlauter valley; Altdorf with the Brunneck castle ruin and St. Nikolaus (1742).
5. Altdorf – Eichstätt (17.3 km) — Altdorfer Wald, crossing of the Limes, Götzelshard (521 m), Buchenhüll with pilgrimage church and Way of the Cross from 1591, descent to the cathedral.

If you want it in four days, take the division used by the online planners: Nürnberg – Harrlach (24.2) – Eysölden (23.2) – Morsbach (19.1) – Eichstätt (22.3). It matches the Camino Ninja chain place for place, but has one catch: Harrlach and Eysölden are villages, not stage towns — sort out your lodging beforehand or divert to Roth or Allersberg, both of which lie close to the corridor but not on the route. Water is available in every village, but between the villages on the plateau there is none: from Thalmässing onward everything seeps away into the karst, and two liters in your pack are no luxury. Places to eat are documented in Harrlach, Hilpoltstein, Eysölden, Stetten, Thalmässing and Morsbach.

A Jerusalem with Nuremberg Rooftops

In Eichstätt Cathedral stands the Pappenheimer Altar, carved from stone around 1489 to 1495, some nine and a half meters high. It shows the Crucifixion, and in the background spreads a „Phantasieansicht Jerusalems“ — an imaginary view of Jerusalem — into which the sculptor, alongside the Dome of the Rock, demonstrably composed architecture from Venice and Nuremberg. So you walk 88.8 kilometers away from Nuremberg and find Nuremberg again at the finish, built into a Jerusalem that nobody ever saw like this. That is the whole logic of medieval pilgrimage in one stone: the Holy Land was not there, it was wherever you built it. That is exactly why pilgrims came to Eichstätt.

For Eichstätt had what otherwise only Jerusalem had. In the former Capuchin church of Heilig Kreuz stands the Holy Sepulchre, erected before 1166 by Irish Benedictines, 4.10 meters high, an oval stone structure with a porch and three entrances, inside a stone bench — the best-preserved Romanesque replica of the Jerusalem tomb chapel in Germany, built at a time when the real one was in Crusader hands. Add to that the graves of two siblings from Wessex: Willibald, born around 700, set off for Rome around 720 with his father and brother, was in the Holy Land from 723 to 727, lived two years as a recluse in Constantinople and became a bishop in 741 — he founded his diocese of Eichstätt as one of the most widely traveled men of his age. His bones lie behind the seated figure of 1514 in a marble urn, and the figure sits, as if someone had planned the punchline, in a scallop niche. His sister Walburga rests in the abbey of St. Walburg, endowed at her grave in 1035; in the winter months drops as clear as water form on her sarcophagus, the Walburgisöl, first recorded in 1078 in the bishops' chronicle of the Anonymus of Herrieden — and still today.

To be honest, the route there is not as old as its destination. The Roth district office writes that the route „folgt einer alten Route, die im Mittelalter von zahlreichen Pilgern auf ihrem Weg nach Santiago de Compostela begangen wurde“ — follows an old route walked in the Middle Ages by numerous pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela — yet nobody names a document that proves this for Hilpoltstein or Thalmässing. What is documented is Nuremberg as a pilgrim city: the patrician Peter Rieter went to Santiago in 1428, Sebald Rieter the Elder in 1462, both described in the travel book of the Rieter family; whoever wanted to get from Nuremberg to Spain, however, went west, not to Eichstätt. And St. Jakob itself is documented: „Am 20. Februar 1209 vermacht Kaiser Otto IV. dem Deutschen Ritterorden die Jakobskirche als Geschenk“, writes the parish — on February 20, 1209, Emperor Otto IV bequeathed the Jakobskirche to the Teutonic Order as a gift — and to this day the coats of arms of the order's knights from the 14th to 16th centuries hang in the church, with name, arms and year of entry. So you walk from a church that entered the records in 1209 to a tomb that already stood in 1166, along a trail the district marked in the early 2000s. All three dates are correct. Only the middle one is missing.

Highlights Along the Way

• St. Jakob, Nuremberg (start) — around 950 years old, church of the Teutonic Order since 1209, in 1810 Nuremberg's third Protestant town parish church; coats of arms of the order's knights from the 14th to 16th centuries. This is where you get your pilgrim passport (€6.50).
• Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal, lock 64 (km 6) — the „Alte Kanal“ of Ludwig I, today a quiet waterway with a towpath; here the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm has not yet split off either, that happens only beyond Worzeldorf.
• Wartstein ruin and Rothsee (stage 2) — the castle destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, the lake a reservoir of the Main-Donau-Kanal system, full of sails on summer days.
• Hilpoltstein (km 38.3) — castle ruin above the old town; St. Johannes der Täufer (choir 1473, high altar 1656) with a figure and depiction of St. James in the high altar — the only tangible trace of St. James between start and finish.
• Stauf castle ruin (km 49.9, 488 m) — distant views across the foreland of the Alb.
• Thalmässing: Fundreich (km 54.1) — archaeological museum on the market square (€3), plus Jewish cemetery and memorial in the village.
• Waizenhofen (km 56.7, 560 m) — the highest point of the route. No summit cross, but the wide expanse of the plateau.
• Landersdorf history village (km 59.0) — reconstructed houses from the Neolithic, the Celtic period and the early Middle Ages, freely accessible all year round, right on the route.
• Anlauter valley with Emsing and Altdorf (km 69.8–71.5) — narrow limestone valley, Brunneck castle ruin above the village, parish church of St. Nikolaus (1732/33, consecrated 1742).
• The Limes (stage 5) — beyond Altdorf you cross the Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005; at Erkertshofen in the municipality of Titting stands the only reconstruction of a stone watchtower in Germany (1992).
• Buchenhüll (km 82.8) — pilgrimage church of Mariä Himmelfahrt, the diocese's oldest Way of the Cross from 1591 and an avenue of lime trees around 400 years old.
• Eichstätt Cathedral (finish) — Willibald choir (1256–1269), seated figure of St. Willibald from 1514 in the scallop niche, Pappenheimer Altar (around 1489/95), mortuary and cloister around 1500. Daily 8 am–6 pm, admission free.
• Holy Sepulchre in Heilig Kreuz — before 1166, 4.10 m high, the best-preserved Romanesque replica of the Holy Sepulchre in Germany. Open during the day, free of charge.
• Abbey of St. Walburg and Willibaldsburg — endowed in 1035, Walburgisöl in the winter months; up at the castle the Jura Museum with its Archaeopteryx (€6, under 18 free).

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

Nuremberg is the hub of the southern German network of St. James routes, and this route is one of its four exits. From the north the Oberfränkischer Jakobsweg comes in from Hof via Bayreuth and ends at St. Jakob — whoever has walked it can continue south from the same church the next morning. From the east comes the Oberpfälzer Jakobsweg from Tillyschanz on the Bohemian border: it skirts Nuremberg to the south and crosses this route at kilometer 9.7, shortly before Worzeldorf, before flowing in Stein into the Mittelfränkischer Jakobsweg to Rothenburg. So whoever comes from Bohemia and wants to reach Eichstätt can turn off at Worzeldorf without setting foot in Nuremberg — you still go and fetch your pilgrim passport and blessing at St. Jakob, the detour is worth it.

Most people who walk here, however, come neither from Hof nor from Bohemia but from the region: as stage pilgrims with a VGN ticket, piecing the route together in day walks over months, or as a group of the pilgrim office of the Diocese of Eichstätt, which offers the route as a guided multi-day walk — start with a pilgrim blessing at St. Jakob, finish at the Frauenberg chapel above Eichstätt. And some walk the first twelve kilometers by accident: the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm starts at the same church and shares the trail until beyond Worzeldorf. There you have to decide — Schwabach and Ulm to the west, or Sorg and Eichstätt to the south.

Continue the pilgrimage?

Eichstätt is a good destination, but not an endpoint. Right through the town runs the Ostbayerischer Jakobsweg, opened on July 16, 2004, which comes up from the Bohemian border at the Neumarker Pass via Regensburg and the Danube Gorge at Weltenburg and stands at its kilometer 214 in Eichstätt. According to the Camino Ninja map it continues from here for another 98 kilometers or so westward through the Altmühl valley and across the Jura to Neresheim — the Wikipedia course via Donauwörth is a different alignment; we follow our chain.

In Neresheim, at the Benedictine monastery with Balthasar Neumann's abbey church, you meet the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm, which passes there at its kilometer 152: another 67 kilometers to Ulm Minster. From Ulm the Oberschwäbischer Jakobsweg takes over to Konstanz, and at Lake Constance begins the classic route through Switzerland to Geneva and on to the French routes. Roughly reckoned: Nuremberg – Eichstätt – Neresheim – Ulm – Konstanz is about 420 kilometers, roughly three weeks; after that a good 2,000 kilometers to Santiago still lie ahead of you. That is not a final sprint, that is a beginning.

To be honest, the often-searched-for „Jakobsweg Eichstätt–Augsburg“ does not exist. The Augsburger Jakobsweg starts in Oettingen im Ries at a bronze figure of St. James and runs via Donauwörth and Augsburg into the Allgäu; from Eichstätt you do not reach it directly but via the Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Ulm, which passes Oettingen at its kilometer 103. So whoever wants Augsburg plans a detour — or takes the Ulm branch straight away, which leads to Lake Constance without changing.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and blessing. Get your passport right at the start: the Pilgrim Center at St. Jakob in Nuremberg issues it „sofort und ohne Portokosten“ — immediately and without postage — for €6.50 (as of September 2026), bring your ID; it is issued in cooperation with the Fränkische St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft in Würzburg, and you can also order it online via their order form, but that takes time. You can get a pilgrim blessing at St. Jakob on request; the guided groups of the diocese always start there with one. Stamps: don't count on a box at every church door. Parish offices, town halls, tourist offices and inns stamp willingly, just ask; in Eichstätt the cathedral, the pilgrim office on Leonrodplatz and the tourist office are the safe bets.

Book accommodation ahead. Here that is not a recommendation but an obligation: there are no pilgrim hostels, only regular businesses, and in villages like Harrlach, Eysölden or Waizenhofen there is nothing at all. Furth belongs to the market town of Schwanstetten with its inns, Hilpoltstein is a small town with hotels, in Thalmässing the country inn expressly advertises „Übernachten am Jakobsweg Nürnberg–Eichstätt“ — overnight stays on the Way of St. James Nuremberg–Eichstätt — and in the municipality of Titting ten establishments are listed, from holiday rooms to a wellness hotel in Emsing. Calling two or three days ahead is usually enough, longer for weekends. Navigation: take a GPX track with you. Three markings overlap — yellow scallop on blue, „NA“, bishop's staff —, and in the Reichswald twenty forest tracks look the same; GPX files are available from the Altmühltal Nature Park, from the Fränkisches Seenland and on the municipal portals.

Best time and opening hours. May to October; from late May to early June the juniper heaths and dry grassland bloom, September brings stable weather and empty paths, in high summer the Rothsee section is crowded. In winter the route is walkable, but many inns in the Altmühltal have closing days or a winter break — on the other hand, that is when the Walburgisöl flows. Eichstätt Cathedral is open daily 8 am to 6 pm, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until 7 pm after evening Mass, admission free. The Jura Museum at the Willibaldsburg: October to March Tue–Sun 10 am–4 pm, April to September Tue–Sun 9 am–6 pm, closed Mondays. The Fundreich Thalmässing opens April to October Tue–Sun 1–5 pm — plan the third stage accordingly if you want to go in. Sturdy hiking boots, rain gear, two liters of water from Thalmässing onward: this route needs no more equipment than that.

What the journey will cost you

The main item is the bed, and here that is an inn bed. As documented reference points from the Titting area: holiday apartments from €29 per unit per night for two people, upmarket holiday accommodation from €115 (as of September 2026). For a double room in a Franconian country inn you should budget €70 to €110 in this region, €50 to €80 for a single room — roughly €200 to €350 per person over four nights. Food: a Brotzeit €8 to €14, a hot main course €12 to €22, with €25 to €35 a day you will get by comfortably; there are shops in Hilpoltstein, Thalmässing and Eichstätt, but hardly any in between.

Admission fees are pleasingly cheap: the cathedral and the Holy Sepulchre in Eichstätt free of charge, Landersdorf history village free all year round, Fundreich Thalmässing €3 (children €1, families €5), Jura Museum €6 (reduced €5, under 18 free). Plus the pilgrim passport for €6.50. Bottom line: five days with inn accommodation, meals out and all admissions come to around €350 to €550 per person, train travel extra — with the Deutschland-Ticket or a saver fare, getting there and back is the smallest item. Whoever sleeps in holiday apartments, cooks for themselves and cuts it down to four stages comes in well below that.

Getting Here

To the start (Nuremberg): Nuremberg main station is an ICE hub from Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna; from the airport the U2 takes you there in twelve minutes. From the main station it is a good twenty minutes on foot right across the old town to Jakobsplatz on the western edge of the city center, where St. Jakob stands — follow the brass scallops in the pavement. Alternatively take the U-Bahn or tram to Weißer Turm or Plärrer.

From the finish (Eichstätt) and along the way: Eichstätt has two stations, and that is the only stumbling block of the trip. Eichstätt Stadt is the terminus station in town, about a kilometer from the cathedral; Eichstätt Bahnhof lies a kilometer and a half outside on the Munich–Treuchtlingen main line. The RB 14 shuttles hourly between the two, from Eichstätt Bahnhof the RB 16 runs hourly to Nuremberg and Munich, and the two are timed to connect on the hour — you board at Eichstätt Stadt and are on the main line without waiting. For stage pilgrims: Hilpoltstein (km 38.3) has a station, the Gredl-Bahn RB 61 runs hourly to Roth, with a connection there to the S-Bahn S2 to Nuremberg. Thalmässing has had no rail link since the section to Greding was closed on September 30, 1999 — VGN regional bus from Hilpoltstein or Roth. Altdorf and Emsing are served by bus from Eichstätt, but the Anlauter valley is not a regular-interval area, so check the timetable. By car: leave it in Nuremberg or Eichstätt and return by train; there are no circular routes here.

• Rail: bahn.de — Deutsche Bahn, ICE Nuremberg, RB 16 / RB 14 Eichstätt
• Local transport: vgn.de — Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg, S2 Nuremberg – Roth, RB 61 Roth – Hilpoltstein, regional buses Thalmässing
• Pilgrim Center St. Jakob Nuremberg: jakobskirche-nuernberg.de — pilgrim passport, pilgrim blessing, stamp
• Operator: landratsamt-roth.de — Roth district, route brochure, culture and tourism
• At the finish: pilgerstelle-eichstaett.de — pilgrim office of the Diocese of Eichstätt, guided pilgrim walks, pilgrim office