Via Lemovicensis

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Vézelay / Porte Saint-Jacques in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
• Length: 918 km (main route via Bourges)
• Duration: 43 stages in our breakdown, averaging a little over 21 km; 35 to 38 days at a brisk pace
• Elevation: ↗ 9,355 m / ↘ 9,448 m
• Highest point: 662 m at km 351.5 in Saint-Goussaud, Monts d'Ambazac in the Limousin; lowest point 12 m in the Garonne plain beyond La Réole
• Landscape: Burgundy, the Loire, the plains of the Berry, the granite hills of the Limousin, the Périgord, the pine forests of the Landes, and finally the Basque Country
• Operator / Waymarking: Amis et Pèlerins de Saint-Jacques de la Voie de Vézelay (founded in 1999); scallop-shell signs, in places the white-and-red blazes of the GR 654
• Traces of St. James: Codex Calixtinus, around 1140; the tomb of St. Leonard with prisoners' chains; Saint-Front Cathedral as a pilgrimage goal named in the Codex; UNESCO World Heritage Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France since 1998 in La Charité, Saint-Léonard, Périgueux, Bazas and Saint-Sever
• Accommodation: five refuges run by the route association, three of them on the main route (Velles, Sorges, Saint-Ferme), plus gîtes d'étape, accueils jacquaires and chambres d'hôtes
• Connecting routes: Via Lemovicensis Southern Variant (Vézelay–Gargilesse via Nevers), Via Turonensis from Saint-Palais, Via Podiensis from Harambeltz, Camino Francés from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
• Best time: May, June and September; the refuges open on March 15

Overview

Around 1140, the Codex Calixtinus lists four roads through France in its fifth book, the oldest pilgrim guide in Europe. Of the second it says: "Alia per Sanctam Mariam Magdalenam Viziliaci et per Sanctum Leonardum Lemovicensem et per urbem Petragoricensem pergit" – another goes by way of St. Mary Magdalene of Vézelay, St. Leonard in the Limousin and the city of Périgueux. The route takes its name from the Limousin, Lemovicensis in Latin. And after almost 900 years, all three shrines still stand exactly where the Codex put them: the sentence you'll want to read out loud is really a set of directions from 1140 that still holds true.

Of the four great French routes, this is the quietest. While hundreds set off every day on the Via Podiensis in high season, here you often walk alone for days through France in its long-form edition: from Burgundy to the Loire, through the Berry and the Limousin into the Périgord, across the Dordogne and the Garonne into the Landes and finally into the Basque Country. Honestly, though, that quiet comes at a price: the network of lodgings is thinner than in Spain, and without a few sentences of French things get tough.

Other Names

In France the route is almost always called the Voie de Vézelay or Chemin de Vézelay, after its starting point; the Latin name Via Lemovicensis, after Limoges and the Limousin, comes from the Codex Calixtinus's route description. In German you'll also come across Limousiner Weg (Limousin Way) or Jakobsweg ab Vézelay (Way of St. James from Vézelay). We cover the southern branch via Nevers on a separate page, the Via Lemovicensis Southern Variant.

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

Ideal if you have six weeks and are looking for the Way of St. James as it was before the big boom: small refuges with five or six beds, dinner at the family table, villages whose church is older than anything else in town. Ideal, too, as a second major pilgrimage, if you know the Camino Francés and now want to walk its French prequel.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you need a pilgrim community: between Bourges and Limoges you may go a whole week without meeting another pilgrim. Not for you if you want to set off without planning ahead – many gîtes expect a call the day before, and in the Landes up to 21 kilometers of pine forest lie between two beds. And not for you if you want to get by on English alone: in the Berry and the Limousin, French is the only language at the dinner table.

Route & Landscape

Burgundy, the Loire and the Berry (km 0–273.3): From the basilica the route leads via Varzy (km 37.0) to La Charité-sur-Loire (km 83.5) on the Loire; the Southern Variant via Nevers branches off right in Vézelay. Across the plains of the Berry you reach Bourges (km 145.7), Issoudun (km 186.2) and Châteauroux (km 221.2). Beyond Argenton-sur-Creuse (km 260.3) the path drops into the rocky valley of the Creuse to Gargilesse-Dampierre (km 273.3), where the Southern Variant rejoins.

The Limousin and the Périgord (km 273.3–529.6): Via Éguzon and the castle ruins of Crozant you enter granite country: La Souterraine (km 317.3), Bénévent-l'Abbaye and up to Saint-Goussaud (km 351.6), the highest point. Then come Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat (km 387.9), Limoges (km 412.8) and Châlus (km 451.8); at La Coquille the Périgord begins, and via Thiviers you reach Périgueux (km 529.6).

The Dordogne, the Garonne, the Landes and the Basque Country (km 529.6–918): Down the Isle via Saint-Astier and Mussidan – Neuvic lies 1.2 kilometers and Le Fleix a good 4 kilometers off the route – you come to Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (km 613.5) on the Dordogne, through the Entre-deux-Mers to La Réole (km 660.7) on the Garonne and via Bazas into the pine forests of the Landes as far as Mont-de-Marsan (km 779.4). Via Saint-Sever, Orthez (km 844.5) and Sauveterre-de-Béarn you reach Saint-Palais (km 883.2), Ostabat and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (km 918).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

Distances from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated to exactly 918 km. We show 43 stages; strong walkers can combine short days such as Diors–Châteauroux or Limoges–Aixe with the following day.

1. Vézelay → Asnois (17.6 km) — down from the hill into the Yonne valley.
2. Asnois → Varzy (19.4 km) — fields and woods of the Nivernais.
3. Varzy → Arbourse (25.6 km) — via Champlemy, long stretches of forest.
4. Arbourse → La Charité-sur-Loire (20.9 km) — down to the Loire.
5. La Charité-sur-Loire → Couy (20.1 km) — across the Loire into the Berry.
6. Couy → Sainte-Solange (26.4 km) — open plain, Baugy for the lunch break.
7. Sainte-Solange → Bourges (15.7 km) — a short day for the cathedral.
8. Bourges → Villeneuve-sur-Cher (16.7 km) — to the Cher.
9. Villeneuve-sur-Cher → Issoudun (23.8 km) — via Chârost on the Arnon.
10. Issoudun → Diors (21.7 km) — fields of the Berry.
11. Diors → Châteauroux (13.3 km) — via Déols, a short city day.
12. Châteauroux → Velles (18.3 km) — refuge of the route association.
13. Velles → Argenton-sur-Creuse (20.8 km) — down to the Creuse.
14. Argenton-sur-Creuse → Gargilesse-Dampierre (13.0 km) — meeting point with the Southern Variant.
15. Gargilesse-Dampierre → Crozant (19.7 km) — via Éguzon to the castle ruins.
16. Crozant → La Souterraine (24.3 km) — into the granite country of the Limousin.
17. La Souterraine → Bénévent-l'Abbaye (21.9 km) — to the abbey church.
18. Bénévent-l'Abbaye → Châtelus-le-Marcheix (18.1 km) — via Saint-Goussaud, 662 m.
19. Châtelus-le-Marcheix → Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat (30.6 km) — long; Les Billanges splits the day.
20. Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat → Limoges (24.9 km) — via Aureil into the city.
21. Limoges → Aixe-sur-Vienne (11.3 km) — half a day, time for Limoges.
22. Aixe-sur-Vienne → Châlus (27.7 km) — hilly and heavily wooded.
23. Châlus → La Coquille (17.2 km) — into the Périgord.
24. La Coquille → Thiviers (18.0 km) — little town of foie gras markets.
25. Thiviers → Sorges (18.8 km) — truffle country, refuge.
26. Sorges → Périgueux (23.8 km) — to the domes of Saint-Front.
27. Périgueux → Saint-Astier (23.3 km) — down the Isle.
28. Saint-Astier → Mussidan (26.6 km) — flat Isle valley.
29. Mussidan → Sainte-Foy-la-Grande (34.0 km) — the longest stage; can be split in Monfaucon.
30. Sainte-Foy-la-Grande → Saint-Ferme (28.0 km) — vineyards, refuge next to the abbey.
31. Saint-Ferme → La Réole (19.2 km) — down to the Garonne.
32. La Réole → Auros (20.4 km) — lowest point of the route.
33. Auros → Bazas (16.4 km) — to the cathedral.
34. Bazas → Captieux (17.8 km) — the forest begins.
35. Captieux → Bourriot (21.0 km) — 21 km of pines without a village.
36. Bourriot → Roquefort (14.1 km) — onward through the Landes.
37. Roquefort → Mont-de-Marsan (29.0 km) — sandy tracks to the Midouze.
38. Mont-de-Marsan → Saint-Sever (21.1 km) — across the Adour to the abbey.
39. Saint-Sever → Hagetmau (15.9 km) — hills of the Chalosse.
40. Hagetmau → Orthez (28.1 km) — into the Béarn.
41. Orthez → Sauveterre-de-Béarn (23.7 km) — to the bridge over the Gave.
42. Sauveterre-de-Béarn → Ostabat (26.9 km) — in company from Saint-Palais on.
43. Ostabat → Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (22.9 km) — to the Porte Saint-Jacques.

Technically nothing is difficult: farm and forest tracks, small paved lanes, and the climbing only piles up in the Limousin and the Basque Country. What wears you down is the length, the occasional day over 28 kilometers, and the Landes, where you have to plan water and food in advance.

The Saint of the Chains – Where the Freed Brought Their Shackles

Just before Limoges awaits one of the strangest pilgrimage sites in France. Leonard, a Frankish nobleman of the 6th century, is said, according to his 11th-century Life, to have received permission from the king to visit prisoners and free those he deemed worthy. In gratitude he was given land at Nobiliacum, today's Noblat. Legend has it that anyone who called on him in captivity saw their chains burst – and the freed carried their shackles to his tomb and hung them there. The chains still appear on the town's coat of arms today.

It was a prince who made him famous: Bohemond of Taranto, crusader and Prince of Antioch, was released in 1103 after three years in captivity and credited his freedom to St. Leonard. Back in the West, he traveled to Noblat himself and brought rich gifts. Richard the Lionheart, too, a prisoner in the Holy Roman Empire from 1192 to 1194, is said by tradition to have had the church and walls restored. The Codex Calixtinus made a visit to the tomb a pilgrim's duty and, in passing, railed against monks who claimed to have Leonard's body. The cult traveled far: it is the same Leonard honored in Bavaria by the Leonhardiritte (St. Leonard's processions on horseback) – there the prisoners' chains simply became cattle chains, and the patron of prisoners became the patron of horses.

The collegiate church, with its 52-meter Limousin bell tower, dates at its core from the 11th and 12th centuries and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1998. A prisoner's chain hangs above the tomb in the south transept. Every seven years, Saint-Léonard and Limoges carry their relics through the streets in the Ostensions, a tradition dating back to 994 and part of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2013; the last were held in 2023, the next follow in 2030. And part of the route's punchline is that Richard the Lionheart knew it in pieces: in 1190 he gathered his crusader army in Vézelay, and in 1199 he died in Châlus, at kilometer 452 – from a crossbow bolt, not a chain.

Highlights Along the Way

• Vézelay (km 0) — abbey since 858/859, Magdalene relics confirmed by the pope in 1058, basilica rebuilt after the fire of 1120; at Easter 1146 Bernard of Clairvaux called for the Second Crusade here. UNESCO World Heritage since 1979.
• La Charité-sur-Loire (km 83.5) — Cluniac priory, founded in 1059, in the Middle Ages the second-largest church in France after Cluny; part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 1998.
• Bourges (km 145.7) — Saint-Étienne Cathedral, begun in 1195, with no transept, a 37-meter vault and five portals; UNESCO World Heritage since 1992.
• Gargilesse-Dampierre (km 273.3) — one of the "Plus Beaux Villages de France" (Most Beautiful Villages of France), with George Sand's Villa Algira.
• Saint-Goussaud (km 351.6) — highest point, a 12th-century lantern of the dead; 1,005 people lived here in 1911, 163 today.
• Limoges (km 412.8) — the city of porcelain and enamel; of the Abbey of Saint-Martial, demolished from 1794 onward, only the crypt survived, rediscovered during the construction of an underground parking garage.
• Châlus (km 451.8) — Château de Châlus-Chabrol, before which Richard the Lionheart was struck by a crossbow bolt in March 1199; he died on April 6, 1199.
• Périgueux (km 529.6) — Saint-Front Cathedral with five domes over a Greek cross, a cathedral since 1669; in 1575 Huguenots threw the relics of St. Front into the Dordogne. Paul Abadie remodeled it from 1852 to 1895 – and then built Sacré-Cœur in Paris.
• Bazas (km 697.5) — Cathedral of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, foundation stone laid in 1233, sacked by Calvinists in 1561; the townspeople bought the façade's freedom for 10,000 écus.
• Saint-Sever (km 800.5) — Benedictine abbey from 988 with some 150 capitals; home of the 11th-century Saint-Sever Apocalypse.

Saint-Palais, Gibraltar, Ostabat: Where France's Routes Converge

After 883 kilometers on a track of your own, you get company in Saint-Palais: from here the Via Turonensis from Paris and Tours runs alongside. Three kilometers farther on, by the hamlet of Gibraltar in the commune of Uhart-Mixe, stands the Stèle de Gibraltar, a Basque discoidal stele dedicated on August 2, 1964, by the Amis du Chemin de Saint-Jacques des Pyrénées-Atlantiques led by historian Clément Urrutibéhéty. The stele marks the spot where the routes from Vézelay, Tours and Le Puy come together; from the chapel of Harambeltz onward you are also walking the line of the Via Podiensis.

Harambeltz was a priory-hospice of St. Nicholas, mentioned in a charter of 1106 and independent of any order; after its dissolution in 1784, four families of donats took over the chapel and still care for it today. In Ostabat, which the Codex knows as the meeting point of three roads, the tax roll of 1350 counted 68 hearths, among them about twenty inns; after the plague, 37 remained in 1412. After weeks of quiet, the bustle of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port then comes as a small culture shock.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

Vézelay is a gathering point. If you're already on foot, you'll most likely reach the hill on one of these feeder routes:

• Voie de Sens — from the Paris Basin via Sens
• Via Campaniensis — from Champagne
• Gy – Vézelay — from Franche-Comté
• Trier – Vézelay — the long way from Germany via Lorraine

In Vézelay you make your choice right at the start: the main route via La Charité and Bourges, or the Via Lemovicensis Southern Variant via Nevers. Switching later isn't planned for – the two branches run separately and only meet again in Gargilesse-Dampierre on the Creuse, at kilometer 273. From there you walk on with all the Vézelay pilgrims.

Continue the pilgrimage?

Yes – the Via Lemovicensis is a feeder route to the Camino. In Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port you stand at the start of the Camino Francés, over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles and in about five more weeks to Santiago de Compostela. If a storm hits the pass, take the Winter Route via Valcarlos; if you'd rather head for the coast, take the Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port – Irun link to the Camino del Norte.

Shortly before the finish, the Voie de Piémont also joins at Bussunarits, and the Voie de la Nive at Saint-Jean-le-Vieux.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on all the French Ways of St. James, you need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to stay in the hostels and to receive the Compostela in Santiago at the end. It's best to order it online in advance so it reaches you in time for the start of your journey; members of the route association get it for free, and you can also pick it up at the association's office in Vézelay. With the Camino Ninja App you have the map and track with you offline; the easiest way to plan the route is right in the app, where you put together your stages and plan suitable accommodation at the same time.

Accommodation. On the main route the route association runs three refuges: Velles (5 beds, March 15 to October 15), Sorges and Saint-Ferme (6 beds each, March 15 to October 31), check-in with a credencial from 4 p.m. Otherwise you sleep in gîtes d'étape, chambres d'hôtes and at accueils jacquaires, private pilgrim hosts with dinner at the family table. Call the day before; here that isn't a courtesy, it's a requirement. The standard directory is "Miam Miam Dodo – Voie de Vézelay".

Season. May, June and September are ideal. In midsummer the Berry, the Garonne plain and the Landes get hot; early starts help. In winter many gîtes are closed.

What the journey will cost you

France is more expensive than Spain. In the route association's refuges you pay what you can – "libre participation" according to your means. Gîtes d'étape usually cost 15 to 25 € a night, half board with dinner and breakfast is often 35 to 45 €, and many accueils jacquaires work on a donation basis (as of October 2026).

Plan on 40 to 65 € a day, depending on how often you take half board and how often you cook for yourself; with around 40 stages that adds up to 1,600 to 2,600 € for the whole route, not counting travel to and from (as of October 2026). Between towns the village bakery is often the only shop, and it is frequently closed on Mondays.

Getting Here

To Vézelay. By train via Paris and Auxerre to Sermizelles-Vézelay, then the last 10 kilometers or so by bus, taxi or on foot as a warm-up.

From the finish. From Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port the regional train runs to Bayonne, where you can connect to the TGV toward Paris; the nearest airport is Biarritz.

• Rail: sncf-connect.com — connections to Sermizelles-Vézelay and from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
• Route association: vezelay-compostelle.eu — refuges, credencial, guidebook