Jakobsweg Weststeiermark

At a glance

• Start / Finish: Graz (official start: St. James church, Thal) / Lavamünd (Carinthia)
• Length: 161.3 km
• Duration: 9 days
• Elevation: ↗ 5,011 m / ↘ 5,023 m
• Highest point: 2,140 m, summit cross of the Großer Speikkogel on the Koralpe
• Stages: 9 (the trail association counts 8 stages from Thal; Camino Ninja adds the approach from Graz in front)
• Direction: east → west, from the Mur over the Koralpe to the Drava
• Responsible body: Verein zur Förderung der steirischen Jakobswege, founded 2009, based in Bärnbach
• Opened: July 25, 2010, on the feast of St. James
• Waymarking: continuous, plus pilgrim stones with the remaining kilometers to Santiago at every stage start and every church
• Connection east: Jakobsweg Graz starts at the same St. James church in Thal and heads toward Maribor
• Connection west: Jakobsweg Kärnten from Lavamünd
• Best time: July to early September (the Koralpen-Haus only opens on July 1)

Overview

The Jakobsweg Weststeiermark is the trail on which Austria's east–west pilgrim axis reaches its highest point. 161.3 kilometers from Graz on the Mur to Lavamünd on the Drava, and in between lies the Koralpe: 5,011 meters of ascent over nine days, a summit cross at 2,140 meters and a mountain hut at 1,966 meters as a stage destination. The trail starts gently — Schloss Eggenberg, the St. James church of Thal, rolling hills via St. Pankrazen and Geistthal — and from Bärnbach on it gets steeper every day, until on the seventh day you stand on the ridge with 1,189 meters of climbing in your legs, looking into Styria on one side and Carinthia on the other.

What sets this trail apart from other mountain routes is the density of churches in a small area: four St. James churches in Thal, Geistthal, Freiland and Soboth, plus a Romanesque parish church in Piber whose first record dates from 1066, the pilgrimage church of Maria Lankowitz with a founding legend dated to the year — and two churches built by two of Austria's most idiosyncratic artists: Ernst Fuchs in Thal, Friedensreich Hundertwasser in Bärnbach. The Verein zur Förderung der steirischen Jakobswege turned this chain into a trail in 2009 and opened it on July 25, 2010, the feast of St. James. Nobody picks that date by accident.

Other names

On the association's signposts and on the cover of the guidebook it is called the Weststeirischer Jakobsweg; Camino Ninja and the tourism regions list it as the Jakobsweg Weststeiermark — same trail. Both names only say where it runs, not what it is: formally it is the waymarked West Styrian section of the Südösterreichischer Jakobsweg, the east–west axis that Peter Lindenthal reconstructed from church dedications and old trade roads, running from Graz via Slovenia, Carinthia, East Tyrol and South Tyrol to Innsbruck.

On regional maps you will also come across the Lipizzanerheimat and the Schilcherland — marketing names of the tourism boards for the area around Piber and Köflach and for the wine country around Deutschlandsberg. They are not trail names, but you will read them more often than the word Jakobsweg. And one small thing about the start: the St. James church stands in Kirchberg, a district of the municipality of Thal; the bus stop is called Thal-Kirchberg, the church Pfarrkirche Thal. Both are the same spot.

Ideal for — and not so much for

This trail is ideal if you want real mountains rather than riverside promenades. 5,011 meters of ascent over 161.3 kilometers is an average that many much longer Camino routes never reach, and the royal stage over the Großer Speikkogel is an alpine day unlike anything on any other Jakobsweg in Austria. You walk mostly alone, sleep in inns and on farms instead of in dormitories, and over nine days you get a cultural density nobody expects from this corner: an Ernst Fuchs church, a Hundertwasser church, a Lipizzaner stud, a Romanesque parish church from 1066 and a UNESCO World Heritage site in the very first kilometer.

Frankly, though, it is not for you if you are looking for hostel life and pilgrim company. There are no pilgrim hostels in the Spanish sense — you book rooms, and you book them in advance, because in Modriach or on the Koralpe nobody is waiting for walk-ins. The season is tight: the Koralpen-Haus, your destination on day seven, only opens on July 1, and the Dreieckhütte on the descent closes around September 10. Set off in May or October and you have not a pilgrimage but a logistics problem. And if asphalt bothers you: between St. Pankrazen and Geistthal and on the Freiland loop you walk longer sections on municipal roads. Gaps like these are planned away beforehand, not on the trail.

Route & landscape

In nine days the trail passes through three completely different landscapes. From Graz you walk via Eggenberg — past the World Heritage palace with its 365 windows — out to Thal, where the official trail begins at the St. James church. Then comes Styrian hill country: Schloss Plankenwarth, the late Romanesque church of Stiwoll with one of the oldest bells in Styria, forest and meadow paths via St. Pankrazen and Geistthal. From Bärnbach you are in the former lignite mining district of Voitsberg, an industrial landscape that has turned itself into museums and colorful church towers. Via Piber, Köflach and Maria Lankowitz the trail climbs into the Schilcherland and gets noticeably steeper.

From Edelschrott the character changes for good. You walk via Modriach and the Herzogberg to over 1,100 meters, then via St. Oswald im Freiland to Osterwitz — and on the seventh day up onto the Koralpe: past the Trahütter Hütte, steeply up to the Weinebene and then along the ridge to the summit cross of the Großer Speikkogel. Up here the trail is pure alpine pasture, a broad treeless ridge with Styria on one side and Carinthia on the other. The descent drags on via the Jauksattel and the Dreieckhütte down to Soboth, then through forest and past farms on the border with the Lavanttal — until the trail drops to 342 meters in Lavamünd, where the Lavant flows into the Drava.

Stages, terrain & difficulty

The trail association divides the route into eight stages from Thal (151.3 km in total, with the variant via the St. James church in Freiland). Camino Ninja puts the ten-kilometer approach from Graz in front and thus arrives at nine days and 161.3 km — the arithmetic works out without rounding, and the official stage distances remain untouched. Daily distances vary considerably, from 10.0 to 26.6 kilometers; the trail is demanding not because of the kilometers but because of the elevation and the supply situation in the second half.

1. Graz – Eggenberg – Thal (St. James church) (10.0 km) — leaving the city, Schloss Eggenberg, asphalt; the Ernst Fuchs church at the end.
2. Thal – Plankenwarth – Stiwoll – St. Pankrazen (20.3 km) — forest and field paths, ↗ 581 m, the Barbara bell in Stiwoll.
3. St. Pankrazen – Geistthal – Bärnbach (26.6 km) — the longest stage, ↗ 606 m / ↘ 932 m; starts on asphalt, then ridge paths with views to the Koralpe, St. James church in Geistthal.
4. Bärnbach – Piber – Köflach – Maria Lankowitz – Edelschrott (15.5 km) — the densest cultural stage: Hundertwasser, Lipizzaners, pilgrimage church.
5. Edelschrott – Modriach (12.7 km) — the shortest stage, ↗ 560 m, up to 1,101 m.
6. Modriach – St. Oswald im Freiland – Osterwitz (21.5 km) — the loop via the St. James church in Freiland, ↗ 775 m; the direct variant is 12.0 km and skips one of the four St. James churches.
7. Osterwitz – Weinebene – Großer Speikkogel – Koralpenschutzhaus (16.7 km) — the royal stage, ↗ 1,189 m, around 7 hours, summit cross at 2,140 m.
8. Koralpenschutzhaus – Jauksattel – Dreieckhütte – Soboth (17.7 km) — alpine pasture on the provincial border, ↘ 1,078 m, forest descent to the St. James church in Soboth.
9. Soboth – Rabenstein – Lavamünd (20.3 km) — ↘ 1,242 m, no place to eat or drink along the entire stage, and at the end the lowest point of the trail on the Drava.

Difficulty: technically moderate, physically demanding. Stages 7 and 8 are mountain paths in open alpine terrain and no place for experiments in fog or thunderstorms; everything before is hill country, everything after is forest. If you do not want the Koralpe, there is no valley alternative — the trail goes over the ridge or not at all. There are no railway stations along the way; you can only shorten the route by bus from Köflach or Deutschlandsberg, which makes this a trail best walked in one go.

Four St. James churches and a church for the non-believers

The research found no Santiago pilgrim from West Styria known by name — no scallop on a tombstone, no confraternity, no will. What this trail has instead is a chain of churches whose dates read like a series of charters: Piber 1066 as the oldest, Freiland 1188, Geistthal around 1245, Thal 1322, Soboth 1545. And one event that speaks louder than any pilgrim biography: the church of Freiland was originally dedicated to St. Leonard and was rededicated to St. James the Greater in the 16th century. A parish does not change its patron on a whim. It does so when the people coming through the valley ask for a different saint. The association picked up this chain in 2009 and laid the trail along the four St. James churches; that it opened it on July 25, 2010, the feast of the apostle, belongs to the same logic.

The most striking church on the trail, however, is not a St. James church at all. St. Barbara in Bärnbach is the church of the miners — Barbara is their patron saint, and Bärnbach was a lignite town, with a glassworks operating since 1805. Parish priest Friedrich Zeck saw a Hundertwasser exhibition in Graz in 1981, met the artist in 1984, and he agreed and waived his fee. In 1987 and 1988 the postwar church was remodeled, on July 2, 1988 the golden onion dome was set in place, on September 4 it was consecrated. Around the church runs a processional path with twelve gates for the religions and worldviews of the earth — Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and one expressly for the non-believers. A pilgrim trail that passes a gate for the unbelievers has understood what walking is about. At the start in Thal, twenty kilometers earlier, Ernst Fuchs had already said it when he built his rainbow-colored St. James church with the crystal glass altar between 1992 and 1994: „Man muss schon von weitem erkennen: Dies ist ein heiliger Ort." — You must be able to tell from afar: this is a holy place.

Highlights along the way

• Schloss Eggenberg, Graz — UNESCO World Heritage since 2010, a calendar in stone: 365 exterior windows, 52 windows on the state floor, 24 state rooms.
• St. James church, Thal — first recorded in 1322, remodeled into a total work of art by Ernst Fuchs from 1992 to 1994: rainbow-colored roof truss, crystal glass altar, scallop shells everywhere.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum, Thal — in his birthplace, since 2011; the pilgrim trail begins a few hundred meters from the world's best-known Styrian.
• Barbara bell in Stiwoll — in the late Romanesque church, according to the association one of the oldest bells in Styria.
• St. James church, Geistthal — first recorded around 1245, the second of the four St. James churches.
• Hundertwasser church of St. Barbara, Bärnbach — remodeled 1987/88, golden onion dome, twelve gates for the world religions, one for the non-believers.
• Stoelzle Glas-Center with glass museum, Bärnbach — glassworks since 1805, the first to fire with lignite; admission €8.00 (as of September 2026).
• Lipizzaner stud, Piber — here since 1920, the only stud with mares from all 17 classic mare families; admission €19.00, with guided tour €24.00 (as of September 2026).
• Parish church of St. Andreas, Piber — first mentioned as a parish in 1066, Romanesque building from the early 13th century, frescoes from the early 15th century; the oldest record on the trail.
• Pilgrimage church of Maria Lankowitz — the second-largest Marian pilgrimage in Styria; miraculous image on the high altar since 1455, today a Franciscan monastery.
• St. James church, Freiland — recorded in 1188, rededicated from St. Leonard to St. James in the 16th century, figure of St. James above the high altar.
• Großer Speikkogel, 2,140 m — summit cross on the Koralpe, highest point of the trail — and of the entire chain from Graz to the Pyrenees.
• St. James church, Soboth — recorded in 1545, consecration inscription 1704; the last of the four St. James churches, at the Sobothpass at 1,347 m.
• Lavamünd — confluence of the Lavant and the Drava, lowest point at 342 m and handover to the Jakobsweg Kärnten.

How pilgrims reach this trail

The easiest approach is by rail: Graz Hauptbahnhof has direct trains from Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and Munich, and since December 2025 also from Klagenfurt in 41 minutes — and from there you simply set off on our variant. If you want to begin at the official start at the St. James church in Thal, take bus 40 or 65 to Gösting from Graz Hauptbahnhof and there bus 48 toward Thal-Kirchberg; by car via the B67 and the Thalerstraße, parking at the church.

If you have been on the road for a while, you have two connections. From Upper Styria, a two-day link trail run by the association leads from Seckau via the Gleinalmschutzhaus to Geistthal — you join the third stage directly and skip Graz and Thal. And the Jakobsweg Graz starts at exactly the same church in Thal and heads the opposite way, southeast through Graz and down the Mur to Maribor. Thal is therefore not an endpoint but a junction: from this one church, two Styrian Camino routes set out, and if you have walked the Graz trail in reverse, you simply carry on here.

Carrying on?

In Lavamünd the trail does not end, it is handed over. On the Drava you meet the Jakobsweg Kärnten, which comes from Dravograd in Slovenia and reaches Lavamünd after eight kilometers — from there it follows the Drava 250 kilometers upstream through the Jauntal, Rosental and Drau valleys to Lienz. There the Jakobsweg Osttirol takes over to the state border at Winnebach, then the Jakobsweg Südtirol via Bruneck and Brixen to Müstair; if you turn north at Kloster Neustift, you walk the Jakobsweg Brenner to Innsbruck and on along the Jakobsweg Österreich toward the Arlberg and Switzerland, where the Via Jacobi begins.

From there the Via Podiensis and the Via Tolosana lead through France to Spain. The 161 kilometers through West Styria are, soberly speaking, a small piece of this chain. But they are the piece on which you climb above 2,000 meters — higher than the Arlberg pass on the Jakobsweg Österreich, higher than the Brenner, higher than the Somport in the Pyrenees.

Preparation & practicalities

The season is tighter than most people think. According to the association, the first stages can be walked from March to November, the Koralpe stage only from June to October — and the Koralpen-Haus at 1,966 meters, your lodging on the seventh evening, is only staffed from July 1 to October 31 (23 beds, reopened in 2021). The Dreieckhütte on the descent closes around September 10, the Trahütter Hütte is only open from June to September. If you want to walk the whole trail in one go, your realistic window is July to early September; the Conrad Stein Verlag guidebook says early June to late September, depending on the huts.

You sleep in pilgrim-friendly inns, on farms, in bed-and-breakfasts and two mountain huts — there are no pilgrim hostels in the Spanish sense on this trail. The association writes it on every single stage page: „Die Quartiere unbedingt frühzeitig reservieren!" — book your lodging well in advance. That is not a stock phrase; in Modriach, Osterwitz and on the Koralpe it is simply the truth. Plan for two supply gaps as well: on the eighth stage there is no staffed hut after September 10, and on the final stage between Soboth and Lavamünd there is neither a shop nor an inn for 20.3 kilometers. The easiest way to put together your stages and the matching lodging is directly in the Camino Ninja app, because the two bottlenecks — Koralpen-Haus and Soboth — get planned in at the same time.

You get a pilgrim passport from the Verein zur Förderung der steirischen Jakobswege for a small contribution, and also at the parish office in Thal (Thursdays 8–12). Stamp stations are plentiful — between Bärnbach and Edelschrott alone there are seven. And pack alpine gear for the Koralpe: the ridge is treeless, the weather turns quickly, and between the Weinebene and the Koralpen-Haus there is no shelter.

What this trail costs

Austria is not Spain: budget €60 to €90 a day if you sleep in inns and guesthouses and eat one hot meal a day (as of September 2026). In the two mountain huts you get away cheaper in the dormitory, Alpine Club members at a further discount. You do not need a booking portal for reservations — most places along the trail take phone calls, and the association lists the phone numbers on its stage pages.

On top of that come the admission fees you actually want to pay on this trail: Lipizzaner stud Piber €19.00 for a self-guided visit, €24.00 with a guided tour; glass museum Bärnbach €8.00; the guidebook „Weststeirischer Jakobsweg" by Reinhard Dippelreither €12.90 (all prices as of September 2026). The churches — Thal, Bärnbach, Piber, Maria Lankowitz, Freiland, Soboth — cost nothing, and they are the real reason this trail exists.

Getting there

To the start (Graz): Graz Hauptbahnhof has direct ÖBB trains from Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and Munich; since the opening of the Koralmbahn on December 14, 2025, also from Klagenfurt in around 41 minutes. To the official starting point in Thal, take bus 40 or 65 from the main station to Gösting and continue on bus 48 to Thal-Kirchberg.

From the finish (Lavamünd): ÖBB Postbus services take you to Wolfsberg (line 5471, via St. Paul), to Bleiburg (line 5420) and toward Völkermarkt (line 5364); for short hops there is the GO-Mobil Lavamünd shared taxi. The new long-distance station Lavanttal in St. Paul im Lavanttal is a few kilometers away — from there you are back in Graz or Klagenfurt in a good 40 minutes. The punchline of the trail lies right here: you spent two days climbing over the Koralpe, and the train passes beneath it in under an hour.

• Rail Austria: oebb.at — Vienna/Salzburg/Klagenfurt – Graz Hbf; Lavanttal station – Graz/Klagenfurt
• Bus Styria: verbundlinie.at — Graz Hbf – Gösting – Thal-Kirchberg (lines 40 or 65 and 48)
• Bus Carinthia: kaerntner-linien.at — Lavamünd – Wolfsberg/Bleiburg/Völkermarkt (Postbus 5471, 5420, 5364)
• Note: no railway station on the trail between Graz and Lavamünd — shortcuts only by bus from Köflach or Deutschlandsberg