Rottenburg – Freiburg – Héricourt

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: Rottenburg am Neckar, St. Martin's Cathedral / Héricourt (Haute-Saône); the Camino Ninja map ends on the edge of town, the center lies just under a kilometer off the track
• Length: 282.1 km, a good 180 of them in Germany and around 100 in France; you cross the border on the Rhine bridge at Fessenheim
• Duration: 14 stages, averaging a good 20 km; fit walkers manage it in 11 to 12 days
• Elevation: ↗ 3,246 m / ↘ 3,239 m
• Highest point: 717 m at km 100.5 between Gutach and Fißnacht, where the route crosses from the Gutach into the Elz Valley; lowest point 196 m in the Rhine plain
• Landscape: Neckar Valley and the Gäu uplands, Black Forest heights and the Kinzig Valley, Elz Valley, Breisgau, Rhine plain, the edge of the Vosges at Thann, the quiet Sundgau and the Burgundian Gate
• Operator / Waymarking: described by the Jakobsweg-Team Winnenden around Berthold Burkhardt and Hans-Jörg Bahmüller; yellow ray bundle on a blue background, from Cernay the yellow shell of the Voie d'Alsace
• Traces of St. James: statue of St. James in Rottenburg Cathedral, St. Jakobus in Ihlingen (dedicated to St. James since 1400), St. James Chapel in Wolfach, St. James relief in Freiburg Minster, St. James altar from 1346 in Thann
• Accommodation: inns and guesthouses, pilgrim hostels in Horb-Ihlingen and Leinstetten; in Alsace chambres d'hôtes, gîtes and the Couvent Saint-Joseph in Bellemagny
• Connecting routes: Beuroner Jakobsweg and Jakobsweg Rothenburg–Rottenburg in Rottenburg, Kinzigtäler Jakobsweg from Loßburg to Wolfach, Himmelreich Jakobsweg in Freiburg, Voie d'Alsace from Cernay, Héricourt – Beaune from the finish
• Best time: May to October; snow lingers on the Black Forest heights well into spring

Overview

This route is the southwest diagonal of Germany's network of Caminos. It starts in Rottenburg am Neckar, where pilgrim routes from Franconia and the Swabian Jura meet, climbs into the Black Forest at Loßburg, follows the Kinzig downstream to Wolfach, crosses a 717-meter saddle into the Elz Valley and heads straight for the Minster in Freiburg. Then it goes flat: Breisgau, the Rhine, Alsace. Beyond Thann on the edge of the Vosges the Sundgau begins, and in Héricourt at the Burgundian Gate the map ends, right where the Burgundy Way to Beaune begins.

Hardly any German Camino changes scenery this often: a Roman town and bishop's seat, an abbey of red sandstone, the half-timbered houses of the rafters, a minster city, a decommissioned nuclear power plant on the Rhine, a stone that fell from the sky in 1492 and, at the end, a lion 21.5 meters long. Two countries, two languages, one waymark. And a guiding principle you'll understand after day one: here it's not an arrow that shows you the way, but the shell itself.

Other Names

The Jakobsweg-Team's guidebook is called Der Jakobsweg von Rottenburg bis Thann (The Way of St. James from Rottenburg to Thann), and that's how most German pilgrims know it: as the Jakobsweg Rottenburg–Thann. The Camino Ninja map extends it to Héricourt, which is why we list it under all three town names. Between Loßburg and Wolfach the route is also the Kinzigtäler Jakobusweg, and from Cernay it is identical to the Alsatian Voie d'Alsace. German guidebooks call the continuation from Héricourt the Burgunderweg (Burgundy Way).

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

Ideal if you want to see as much as possible on a single route: a mountain range, a great minster, a Rhine crossing on foot and, two weeks later, another country with another cuisine. Also ideal as your first cross-border pilgrimage, because almost every stage town has a train station and you can break off at any time.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you expect a hostel network like in Spain: you'll sleep in inns and chambres d'hôtes, small places like Leinstetten, Fißnacht or Bellemagny have only a handful of beds, and you book ahead. Not for you if climbs ruin your mood: the first half packs in most of the 3,246 meters of ascent. And not for you if solitude is everything: between Freiburg and Ensisheim you walk for long stretches along roads, fields and the Grand Canal d'Alsace.

Route & Landscape

Rottenburg to Wolfach (km 0–86.7): From the Neckar the route climbs via Seebronn and Wolfenhausen into the Gäu and drops back into the valley at Mühlen (km 23.5); Horb am Neckar (km 29.5) sits on the rocky spur above. Via Ihlingen with its St. James church and Dettingen you climb onto the heights near Kaltenhof, then continue via Leinstetten (km 44.8) and Sterneck to Loßburg (km 56.6), where the Kinzig rises. From here the route follows the river downstream: Alpirsbach (km 65.2), Schenkenzell, the half-timbered little town of Schiltach (km 74.9) and Wolfach (km 86.7). Oberwolfach lies 1.6 km off the route.

Wolfach to Héricourt (km 86.7–282.1): Via Kirnbach you reach Gutach (km 94.2) at the open-air museum and climb to the highest point, 717 meters at km 100.5, then descend to Elzach (km 112.6) and follow the Elz Valley via Waldkirch (km 127.4) and Denzlingen to Freiburg (km 145.0). Through the Breisgau, past Schallstadt and Tiengen, you come to Grezhausen (km 166.7) and cross the Rhine at Fessenheim (km 182.5). In Alsace the route crosses the plain to Ensisheim (km 202.2) and Cernay (km 219.2), reaches the edge of the Vosges at Thann (km 226.2), then winds through the hilly Sundgau via Guewenheim and Bellemagny (km 244.5). The route skirts Belfort to the west, with the center 0.7 km off the track; via Essert and Buc you reach Héricourt (km 282.1).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

We show the route in 14 stages; the distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 282.1 km. The guidebook divides the stretch to Thann into 20 shorter sections, while fit walkers combine Elzach–Freiburg or Grezhausen–Ensisheim into a single day each. If you'd rather spend the night in Horb (km 29.5) than in Mühlen, your first day is six kilometers longer.

1. Rottenburg → Mühlen (23.5 km) — via Seebronn and Wolfenhausen through the Gäu, then down into the Neckar Valley.
2. Mühlen → Leinstetten (21.3 km) — via Horb and Ihlingen up onto the heights near Kaltenhof, 645 meters; pilgrim hostel in Leinstetten.
3. Leinstetten → Alpirsbach (20.4 km) — via Sterneck to Loßburg at the source of the Kinzig and down to the abbey.
4. Alpirsbach → Wolfach (21.5 km) — down the Kinzig Valley via Schenkenzell and Schiltach.
5. Wolfach → Elzach (25.9 km) — the queen stage: via Kirnbach and Gutach up to 717 meters and down into the Elz Valley.
6. Elzach → Waldkirch (14.8 km) — an easy walk down the Elz Valley, with time for the collegiate church.
7. Waldkirch → Freiburg (17.6 km) — via Denzlingen and Gundelfingen into the minster city.
8. Freiburg → Grezhausen (21.7 km) — through the Breisgau to the Rhine; beds also in nearby Hartheim.
9. Grezhausen → Fessenheim (15.8 km) — a short stage along the river and over the bridge into France.
10. Fessenheim → Ensisheim (19.7 km) — flat across the Alsatian plain via Roggenhouse.
11. Ensisheim → Thann (24.0 km) — via Staffelfelden and Cernay to the foot of the Vosges.
12. Thann → Bellemagny (18.3 km) — into the Sundgau, via Leimbach, Roderen and Guewenheim to the convent.
13. Bellemagny → Belfort (22.3 km) — rolling hills via Angeot, Lagrange and Denney into the Burgundian Gate.
14. Belfort → Héricourt (15.3 km) — the short finale via Essert and Buc.

The terrain is moderately difficult. Stages 2 to 5 bring several hundred meters of up and down each day, stage 5 the most; from Freiburg on the walking is almost level, and only in the Sundgau does it get rolling again. The surface alternates between forest and field tracks and asphalt, with asphalt dominating in the Rhine plain.

Follow the Rays to Where They Meet

This route's waymark is not an arrow but a yellow ray bundle on a blue background, the stylized shell. It is placed so that the rays converge in the direction of travel: where they meet, that's the way on. There usually aren't any extra arrows. Sounds like a detail, yet it's the most important lesson of day one, because if you misread the sign, you'll reliably walk the wrong way. The route was developed and described by Berthold Burkhardt and Hans-Jörg Bahmüller of the Jakobsweg-Team Winnenden, which had already opened the route from Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Rottenburg on July 25, 2004, and today documents more than 60 Caminos with tracks. Bahmüller, according to the Protestant Church in Württemberg, always carries the blue stickers with the yellow shell in his pack.

The direction is older than the paint. In Ihlingen near Horb the parish church's dedication to St. James is documented since 1400, and in 1994 a St. James stone was set there. In 1550 Hans Marx set out from Leinstetten for Santiago; which route he took, nobody knows. In Freiburg Minster a relief from around 1220 shows St. James crowning pilgrims, in Thann a St. James altar stood in 1346, and a Rue Saint-Jacques is on record there in 1364. In the Kinzig Valley you walk on doubly marked ground: there the Hausach local historian Kurt Klein had opened the Kinzigtäler Jakobusweg back on July 25, 1993, marking it with his own brush.

At the border the sign changes, not the direction. From Cernay you follow the yellow shell of the Voie d'Alsace, inaugurated by the Amis de Saint-Jacques en Alsace on St. James's Day 2003, and in Héricourt the Burgundy Way takes over, continuously waymarked since 2004. Three associations, three national emblems, one idea. Honestly, the transitions aren't always seamlessly signposted; the Camino Ninja App helps at those spots.

Highlights Along the Way

• Rottenburg am Neckar (km 0) — founded as Sumelocenna around AD 98 and destroyed by the Alemanni around 259/260, Habsburg from 1381, a bishop's seat since 1821; the tower of St. Martin's Cathedral dates from 1486, and inside a statue of St. James sends you on your way.
• St. Jakobus in Ihlingen (km 32.4) — the former mother church of Horb with parts from the 12th century, dedicated to St. James since 1400, pilgrim hostel.
• Alpirsbach Abbey (km 65.2) — founded in 1095, the great church consecrated in 1128, dissolved in 1535; because little was rebuilt afterward, the Romanesque basilica of red sandstone stands almost as it did in the 12th century. In the dormitory, monastery pupils scribbled on the walls in the 17th century.
• Schiltach (km 74.9) — the half-timbered market square of the rafting town, a town hall with a stepped gable from 1593; Hansgrohe has been based here since 1901.
• St. James Chapel, Wolfach (km 86.7) — shepherds are said to have found a statue of St. James in a fir tree; destroyed in 1540, rediscovered by children at play in 1655, rebuilt in 1680, with a self-service stamp for pilgrims.
• Vogtsbauernhof, Gutach (km 94.2) — a farmhouse from 1612 on its original site, the heart of the Black Forest Open-Air Museum opened in 1964, right on the route.
• Waldkirch (km 127.4) — founded around 918 as the convent of St. Margarethen, baroque collegiate church by Peter Thumb from 1732–1734, a town of organ builders since 1799.
• Freiburg Minster (km 145.0) — construction began around 1200, the tower around 1330, a St. James relief in the St. Nicholas Chapel; stamp at the C-Punkt on Münsterplatz.
• Fessenheim (km 182.5) — Rhine crossing next to France's oldest nuclear power plant, commissioned in 1977, its two reactors shut down on February 22 and June 29, 2020.
• Ensisheim (km 202.2) — seat of the Further Austrian government from 1431; the Musée de la Régence holds the meteorite of November 7, 1492, which originally weighed around 127 kilograms.
• Thann (km 226.2) — the collegiate church of Saint-Thiébaut with some 500 figures on its west portal, above it the Rangen Grand Cru vineyard and the Engelbourg castle ruin with its „Hexenauge“ (witch's eye).
• Lion of Belfort (km 266.8) — 21.5 meters long, carved from red Vosges sandstone by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi from 1875 to 1880, commemorating the 103-day siege in the winter of 1870/71.
• Héricourt (km 282.1) — scene of the first battle of the Burgundian Wars in 1474, Lutheran from 1565; in the Temple Saint-Christophe, Catholics and Protestants shared one church until 1887.

Two Towers and a Stone from the Sky

You walk toward Freiburg Minster for half a day. Its 116-meter west tower with the openwork tracery spire was finished around 1330, and the Basel art historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote the line Freiburg still quotes today: „Und Freiburg wird wohl der schönste Turm auf Erden bleiben.“ (And Freiburg will surely remain the most beautiful tower on earth.) The Minster survived the bombing night of November 27, 1944, almost unscathed.

Four days' walk later, Thann sees things differently. The collegiate church of Saint-Thiébaut was built from 1307 to 1516, its tower measures 78 meters, and the people of Thann have their own saying: Strasbourg has the tallest tower, Freiburg the most massive, Thann the most beautiful. So Freiburg is merely massive. You get to be the judge, because you'll see both towers 81 kilometers apart.

At noon on November 7, 1492, a meteorite crashed into a wheat field near Ensisheim. It is the oldest meteorite fall in Europe whose stone still survives. King Maximilian I had it chained up and hung in the parish church, and read it as a sign for his war against France. Sebastian Brant made it famous across Europe with a broadsheet: „Dreyg zentner schwär fyel diser stein / Hye jnn dem feld vor Ensißheim“, in English: three hundredweight heavy fell this stone, here in the field outside Ensisheim. The main piece still weighs 53.8 kilograms today; the rest is scattered across museums from Paris to Vienna, with a fragment in Freiburg too. So in a single day you walk from one piece to the other.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

Rottenburg is a hub. From the northeast the Jakobsweg Rothenburg–Rottenburg arrives via Tübingen, and from the same town the Beuroner Jakobsweg sets off south. If you're walking from Franconia or Swabia, you'll be standing at the start without any detour.

Along the way several routes cross or share the track:

• Neckar-Baar-Jakobsweg — shared from Horb via Ihlingen to Dettingen, then south toward Rottweil and Schaffhausen
• Kinzigtäler Jakobsweg — shared from Loßburg to Wolfach, then on down the valley to Strasbourg
• Himmelreich Jakobsweg — crosses in Freiburg, coming from the Höllental and heading for Basel
• Voie d'Alsace — shared from Cernay via Thann and the Sundgau

At the Rhine the guidebook also offers a variant via Breisach; the Camino Ninja map follows the line via Hartheim and Fessenheim.

Continue the pilgrimage?

Yes, on to Burgundy. In Héricourt the Héricourt – Beaune begins, the Burgundy Way through Franche-Comté to the Côte d'Or. From Beaune the line continues via Cluny toward Le Puy-en-Velay. And you won't be alone in Héricourt: the Lindau – Héricourt arrives at the same point from Lake Constance via Basel, and anyone who has walked the Voie d'Alsace has shared the last 60 kilometers with you.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on all German and French Caminos, you need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to collect stamps along the way and to stay in pilgrim hostels; if you continue all the way to Santiago, it's where you collect the stamps for your Compostela. It's best to order it online in advance so it reaches you in time for the start of your trip. Stamps are available in churches, parish offices and tourist offices, and as a self-service stamp at the St. James Chapel in Wolfach. You can tailor the stages freely, most easily right in the Camino Ninja App, where you put together your stages and plan suitable accommodation at the same time.

Accommodation and season. The best time is May to October. In the Black Forest you stay in inns and guesthouses, there are pilgrim hostels in Horb-Ihlingen and Leinstetten, and in Alsace chambres d'hôtes, gîtes and the convent lodging in Bellemagny. In Leinstetten, Fißnacht, Grezhausen and the Sundgau the choice is small, so book a day or two ahead. Handy for partial sections: Horb, Loßburg, Alpirsbach, Schiltach, Wolfach, Gutach, Elzach, Waldkirch and Freiburg all have train stations.

Guidebook. A proven companion is the ring-bound guidebook „Der Jakobsweg von Rottenburg bis Thann“ by Burkhardt and Bahmüller in A6 format, 138 pages with maps and elevation profiles.

What the journey will cost you

In the German section you'll usually pay 50 to 75 € per person per night with breakfast in an inn or guesthouse, considerably less in the pilgrim hostels (as of October 2026). With food, budget 70 to 100 € a day; Freiburg is the most expensive overnight stop on the route. In Alsace, with chambres d'hôtes and gîtes and one hot meal, you'll spend about 60 to 90 € a day (as of October 2026).

The guidebook costs 12 to 15 € (as of October 2026). Pilgrimaging together saves money: a double room is almost always cheaper per head than two single rooms.

Getting Here

To the start. Rottenburg is on the Tübingen–Horb railway line; from Stuttgart you'll get there via Tübingen in just over an hour. The route starts at St. Martin's Cathedral on the market square.

From the finish. Héricourt has a station on the Belfort–Montbéliard–Besançon line, and about ten kilometers away is the Belfort-Montbéliard TGV station on the Rhine–Rhône high-speed line. To get back to Germany, travel via Mulhouse and Basel or via Strasbourg.

• Train to Rottenburg: bahn.de — connections and tickets, also for partial stages in the Black Forest
• Return from Héricourt and Belfort: sncf-connect.com — TER and TGV