Via Imperii

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: St. James's Cathedral in Szczecin (Stettin) / Hof an der Saale
• Length: 613.6 km, a good 20 km of it in Poland
• Duration: 27 stages averaging just under 23 km; three natural sections, Szczecin–Berlin, Berlin–Leipzig and Leipzig–Hof, of roughly a week each
• Elevation: ↗ 3,533 m / ↘ 3,047 m
• Highest point: 588 m at km 594.5 near Schwarzenreuth, between Plauen and Hof
• Landscape: Oder floodplains and polders, the Uckermark, beech and pine forest in the Barnim, the big city of Berlin, the Fläming, the Dübener Heide, Leipzig's floodplain forest, the Altenburger Land and finally the hills of the Vogtland
• Waymarking: yellow shell on a blue background, still patchy between Bernau and Berlin
• Traces of St. James: St. James's Cathedral in Szczecin as the starting point, St. James in the late Gothic altarpiece of St. Marien in Bernau, the Jacobshospital in Leipzig
• Accommodation: few true pilgrim hostels (Schwedt, Lunow-Stolzenhagen, Groß Ziethen, Eberswalde, Treuenbrietzen, Hof); otherwise guesthouses, parish halls and youth hostels
• Connecting routes: Camino Pomorska ends in Szczecin, Jakobsweg Brandenburg Nordroute in Bernau, Jakobsweg Brandenburg Südroute between Marienfelde and Stahnsdorf, Jakobsweg Frankfurt (Oder) – Leipzig from Plaußig, Via Regia in Leipzig, Sächsischer Jakobsweg in Zwickau and Hof, Oberfränkischer Jakobsweg from Hof
• Best time: May to June and September to October; thanks to the flat profile it's basically walkable year-round, though midsummer is hot and short on shade on Brandenburg's sandy tracks

Overview

The Via Imperii is the Way of St. James on the old imperial road. In the Middle Ages this north–south axis linked Stettin at the mouth of the Oder via Berlin, Wittenberg, Leipzig and Nuremberg with Rome; around 1430, according to Wikipedia, "mit 6500 Frachtwagen pro Jahr über 90 Prozent des Fernhandelsverkehrs zwischen Augsburg und der Republik Venedig" (with 6,500 freight wagons a year, over 90 percent of long-distance trade between Augsburg and the Republic of Venice) traveled this route. Today a waymarked pilgrim trail follows it for 613.6 kilometers, from St. James's Cathedral in Szczecin to Hof on the Bavarian border. Where six and a half thousand wagons once rolled every year, on some days you won't meet a single pilgrim.

Hardly any German Camino changes its face so often: Oder floodplains, brick Gothic and quiet forests in Brandenburg, then right across Berlin, through Luther country and into the trade-fair city of Leipzig; only in the Vogtland does it get hilly. To be honest, this isn't a route where a network of hostels carries you along; it demands planning and rewards it with quiet, history and a train station at almost every stage end.

Other Names

Via Imperii literally means "road of the empire"; it was one of the great imperial roads of the Holy Roman Empire, known in the south as the "untere Straße" (lower road). The Brandenburg operators write Via Imperii Stettin/Szczecin – Berlin and Via Imperii Berlin – Leipzig, and in everyday use you'll also see Jakobsweg Stettin–Hof. Don't confuse it with the Via Regia, its east–west sister running west from Görlitz; the two cross in Leipzig.

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

The Via Imperii is ideal for you if you like history you can touch, enjoy walking in silence alone or as a pair, and appreciate flat, brisk pilgrimage. It's also ideal if you want to spread the route over several vacations: Szczecin, Berlin, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Zwickau, Plauen and Hof all have train stations, and with the Deutschland-Ticket you can reach almost every section by regional train.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you're after mountain panoramas, southern sunshine or a pilgrim scene with evening get-togethers at the hostel. Not for you if you want to set off without booking ahead: accommodation is spread far apart, and the first two stages are long at 35.0 and 32.8 kilometers. And not for you if you hate asphalt, concrete-slab tracks and city kilometers: in Berlin alone you'll walk a good 40 kilometers on pavement between Buch and Teltow.

Route & Landscape

Szczecin to Berlin (km 0–206.2): From St. James's Cathedral you head south out of Szczecin; after a good 20 kilometers, between Kamieniec and Staffelde, you're in Germany. Beyond Gartz (km 35.0) the Lower Oder Valley National Park keeps you company, inaugurated on September 10, 1995, Germany's only intact polder landscape. Via Schwedt (km 67.8) and Angermünde (km 104.5) the trail crosses the terminal moraines of the Uckermark and the Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve to Chorin Abbey (km 130.9), then runs through the beech and pine forest of the Barnim via Eberswalde and Bernau to Berlin (km 206.2).

Berlin to Hof (km 206.2–613.6): South of the capital come Brandenburg sand, pines and the asparagus fields around Beelitz, then the Fläming with the wind turbines of Feldheim and the Elbe at Lutherstadt Wittenberg (km 332.6). The Dübener Heide and the floodplain forest lead to Leipzig (km 420.3), beyond which lie the lakes of the former lignite mining district and the Altenburger Land. From Zwickau (km 523.5) the Vogtland rises, with the Pöhl Reservoir, Plauen (km 576.5) and the highest point of 588 meters near Schwarzenreuth, before the trail drops down to the Saale at Hof (km 613.6).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

We present the route in 27 stages. The distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 613.6 km; the stage towns have accommodation, and daily distances are mostly between 17 and 28 kilometers. The operator in Brandenburg divides Szczecin–Berlin into 10 and Berlin–Leipzig into 10 stages; ours are 8 and 10.

1. Szczecin → Gartz (35.0 km) — across the border to the Oder floodplains; long
2. Gartz → Schwedt (Oder) (32.8 km) — through the national park, few places to stop
3. Schwedt (Oder) → Stolpe (22.0 km) — polder meadows; ASF restricted zone
4. Stolpe → Groß-Ziethen (26.8 km) — Angermünde, hostel in Groß Ziethen
5. Groß-Ziethen → Eberswalde (26.3 km) — Brodowin, Chorin Abbey, Ragöser Mühle
6. Eberswalde → Biesenthal (21.0 km) — Barnim Nature Park
7. Biesenthal → Berlin-Buch (22.3 km) — Bernau with St. Marien, city outskirts
8. Berlin-Buch → Berlin (20.0 km) — Pankow, Mitte
9. Berlin → Teltow (23.2 km) — Tempelhof, Mariendorf, Marienfelde
10. Teltow → Saarmund (22.1 km) — first pine forests
11. Saarmund → Beelitz (16.0 km) — short day into asparagus country
12. Beelitz → Treuenbrietzen (23.5 km) — pilgrim lodging in Treuenbrietzen
13. Treuenbrietzen → Marzahna (17.2 km) — gently up into the Fläming, through Feldheim to 149 m
14. Marzahna → Lutherstadt Wittenberg (24.4 km) — down to the Elbe
15. Lutherstadt Wittenberg → Kemberg (18.9 km) — across the Elbe
16. Kemberg → Bad Düben (25.3 km) — Dübener Heide, Lutherstein, the mills near Tornau
17. Bad Düben → Krostitz (21.7 km) — villages of the Leipzig Lowland Bay
18. Krostitz → Leipzig (21.8 km) — Plaußig, Portitz, market square
19. Leipzig → Rötha (21.7 km) — floodplain forest and mining lakes
20. Rötha → Borna (12.6 km) — short day, time for the two Silbermann organs in Rötha
21. Borna → Altenburg (23.3 km) — Windischleuba
22. Altenburg → Crimmitschau (28.0 km) — Gößnitz, the first hills
23. Crimmitschau → Zwickau (17.6 km) — into Schumann's city
24. Zwickau → Reichenbach im Vogtland (25.5 km) — Schönfels with its castle, Neumark
25. Reichenbach im Vogtland → Plauen (27.5 km) — Buchwald, Pöhl Reservoir, Möschwitz; the hilliest day
26. Plauen → Heinersgrün (21.6 km) — highest point 588 m; few beds
27. Heinersgrün → Hof (15.5 km) — via Trogen to the Saale

The surface alternates between field and forest tracks, Brandenburg sand, concrete slabs and plenty of asphalt around Berlin and Leipzig; nothing is technically difficult. For over 500 kilometers you'll barely feel a gradient; only between Zwickau and Hof do you get days with several hundred meters of up and down. Waymarking is mostly reliable in Saxony and southern Berlin; in the north, according to the operator, it is "derzeit noch nicht vollständig ausgeschildert" (not yet fully signposted) (as of November 26, 2025: marked as far as Bernau). Take the track with you, ideally right in the Camino Ninja App.

Imperial Road to Rome: 6,500 Freight Wagons and a Crossroads Called Leipzig

The Via Imperii was no romantic back road but one of Europe's most important arteries: privileged by compulsory routing, well built and heavily tolled. It linked the Hanseatic towns on the Baltic with Venice and Rome, and according to the Brandenburg St. James Society, pilgrims to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago demonstrably traveled with the merchants. For the Holy Year 1500, the Nuremberg cartographer Erhard Etzlaub drew a pilgrim map on which every road runs toward Rome: "Das ist der Rom-Weg von meylen zu meylen mit puncten verzeychnet von eyner Stat zu der andern durch deutzsche lantt" (This is the Rome road, marked with dots mile by mile from one town to the next through German lands). A year later, in 1501, came his map of the highways through the Roman Empire.

The best twist lies at the midpoint of the route. At the crossroads of the Via Imperii and the Via Regia grew the "place by the lime trees," Lipsk in Sorbian, today's Leipzig; Thietmar of Merseburg calls it "urbs Libzi" in 1015. Around 1165, Margrave Otto the Rich granted town and market rights, and in 1497 Emperor Maximilian I raised its markets to imperial fairs. Since April 28, 2017, a bronze plaque in front of the Alte Waage on the market square explains what you're doing right now: "Hier in Leipzig kreuzte sie die Via Imperii (Reichsstraße), die in Nord-Süd-Richtung verlief." (Here in Leipzig it crossed the Via Imperii, the imperial road running north–south.) So Leipzig didn't grow up along the road – the roads made Leipzig.

The route was revived in stages. First, between 2009 and 2013, Saxon volunteers waymarked the Sächsischer Jakobsweg and then the sections between Leipzig and Hof; Berlin–Leipzig has been marked since spring 2015, and on November 20, 2015, the missing link Berlin–Hof was opened, just in time for the "1000 Jahre Leipzig" (1,000 Years of Leipzig) anniversary. The St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft Berlin-Brandenburg-Oderregion, founded in spring 2011, began waymarking the northern section from Szczecin in spring 2020, together with Chorin Abbey.

Highlights Along the Way

• St. James's Cathedral, Szczecin (km 0.0) — endowed by Beringer of Bamberg, according to tradition in 1187; spire lost during the siege of 1677, rebuilt in 1894, bombed in August 1944, a minor basilica since 1983.
• Gartz (km 35.0) — town charter 1249, the 13th-century Stettiner Tor as the last of four town gates, St. Stephen's Church a partial ruin since 1945.
• Lower Oder Valley National Park (km 40–90) — 10,323 hectares, polders flooded in winter, cranes, storks and terns.
• Chorin Abbey (km 130.9) — Cistercian, founded in 1258, secularized in 1542; Schinkel had the ruin secured from 1817, home of the Choriner Musiksommer festival since 1964.
• St. Marien in Bernau (km 175.9) — late Gothic winged altarpiece from around 1520, probably from the Cranach school, with 39 figures and 68 paintings; according to the operator, St. James is among the saints.
• Feldheim (km 304.5) — since October 2020 Germany's first energy-self-sufficient village.
• Lutherstadt Wittenberg (km 332.6) — Castle Church with the Theses Door, the Town Church of St. Marien with the Cranach altarpiece, the Luther House; UNESCO World Heritage since 1996.
• Leipzig (km 420.3) — St. Thomas Church with Bach's grave, St. Nicholas Church of the 1989 Monday demonstrations, the plaque in the market square.
• Rötha (km 442.0) — two churches with Silbermann organs, St. Marien a former pilgrimage church.
• Altenburg (km 477.9) — Barbarossa came here five times, the Rote Spitzen towers recall the Augustinian monastery; the card game Skat was invented here between 1810 and 1818.
• Zwickau (km 523.5) — St. Mary's Cathedral with the Wolgemut altarpiece of 1479 and Peter Breuer's Pietà of 1502.
• Plauen (km 576.5) — St. John's Church, consecrated in 1122; on October 7, 1989, the first large free demonstration in the GDR.
• Hof (km 613.6) — rebuilt as a Biedermeier town after the fire of 1823; in 1989 the trains carrying the refugees from the Prague embassy arrived here.

Wittenberg and the Lutherstein: Walking Through the Land That Abolished Pilgrimage

Of all things, a Way of St. James brings you into the town from which pilgrimage ground to a halt across half of Europe. Elector Frederick the Wise had amassed one of the largest relic collections of his time in Wittenberg's Castle Church: the Heiltumsbuch (Book of Relics) of 1509, illustrated by Lucas Cranach, lists 5,005 relics, and anyone who venerated them and donated could hope for 501,300 days of indulgence. In 1517, Martin Luther put his 95 Theses against indulgences up for debate at that very church. A pilgrimage site that abolished itself.

Luther knew this road. The Lutherstein in the Dübener Heide, on your route at km 367.9 between Kemberg and Bad Düben, commemorates him: according to tradition he passed by here in 1508 as an Augustinian monk on his way from Erfurt to Wittenberg, and in June 1519 he preached from the stone on his way back from the Leipzig Disputation. The inscription from his hymn "Ein feste Burg" (A Mighty Fortress) was added in 1817 for the 300th anniversary of the Reformation. That shells are stuck to the trees here again today is a quiet irony of history – and a lovely one.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

From the northeast, Poland comes to meet you: the Camino Pomorska runs 791.6 kilometers along the Polish Baltic coast and ends precisely at St. James's Cathedral in Szczecin, where the Via Imperii begins. If you arrive there, you just change direction, from west to south.

Along the way, other routes join in, and each junction is a possible starting point:

• Jakobsweg Brandenburg Nordroute — from Frankfurt (Oder) to Bernau bei Berlin
• Jakobsweg Brandenburg Südroute — from Frankfurt (Oder) into southern Berlin, shared route between Marienfelde and Stahnsdorf
• Jakobsweg Frankfurt (Oder) – Leipzig — via Lübben and Torgau, on the Via Imperii from Plaußig to Leipzig
• Via Regia — the east–west axis from Görlitz, crossing in Leipzig
• Sächsischer Jakobsweg — from Bautzen via Dresden and Chemnitz, touches the Via Imperii in Zwickau and also ends in Hof

Continue the pilgrimage?

Hof is far from the end: historically, the imperial road continued to Nuremberg and Rome. As a Way of St. James, the Oberfränkischer Jakobsweg takes over, inaugurated on July 25, 2009, and carries you 181.1 kilometers via Bayreuth to Nuremberg. There the routes toward Lake Constance and Switzerland begin, and from there it's one continuous line to Santiago.

The Sächsischer Jakobsweg also ends in Hof, so from Zwickau you have a choice of two lines. The Camino Ninja planner combines the routes automatically, just as they meet on the signposts.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on all Ways of St. James, you need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to stay in pilgrim 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 trip; the St. Jakobus-Gesellschaft Berlin-Brandenburg-Oderregion issues the credencial as well as its own Brandenburg pilgrim pass. You can get stamps in churches, tourist offices and town halls. Plan your stages ahead of time; given the accommodation situation, it pays off even more here than in Spain – the easiest way is right in the Camino Ninja App, where you put your stages together and plan suitable accommodation along with them.

African swine fever. In the Uckermark between Criewen and Crussow, on stages 3 and 4, entering the forests and open countryside is prohibited, according to the operator (as of July 17, 2026). Check the operator's website before you set off and plan a detour.

Accommodation and season. In the north there are pilgrim hostels in Schwedt (StroamCamp), in Lunow-Stolzenhagen near Stolpe, in Groß Ziethen and a pilgrim room in Eberswalde; in the south, Pension Britta in Treuenbrietzen and the Diakonie pilgrim hostel in Hof with 4 beds. In between, guesthouses, parish halls and youth hostels fill the gaps. Book a few days ahead; in Treuenbrietzen it's mandatory. May, June and September are ideal; in midsummer the sandy tracks in the Fläming and the Dübener Heide get hot.

What the journey will cost you

Pilgrim lodgings are cheap: Schwedt 10 to 55 € depending on tent or room, Lunow-Stolzenhagen from 10 €, Groß Ziethen by donation, the Eberswalde pilgrim room free, Pension Britta in Treuenbrietzen 25 € (as of October 2026). Guesthouses charge 40 to 70 € for a single room, considerably more in Berlin and Leipzig.

Budget roughly 50 to 85 € per day with guesthouses and meals out, or 30 to 45 € if you use pilgrim lodgings and cook for yourself (as of October 2026). A real money-saver is the Deutschland-Ticket at 63 € a month (as of October 2026): it covers your journey there and back on regional trains and any break along the way.

Getting Here

To the start. The most convenient way to Szczecin is via Berlin: the regional express takes about two hours from Berlin to Szczecin Główny. From within Poland, Szczecin is a rail hub anyway.

From the finish. Hof Hauptbahnhof connects you directly with Leipzig, Nuremberg and Regensburg. Because Berlin, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Altenburg, Zwickau, Reichenbach and Plauen are all on the rail network, the Via Imperii is ideal for walking in sections.

• Rail: bahn.de — connections to Szczecin via Berlin and from Hof
• Polish rail: intercity.pl — travel to Szczecin Główny from Poland
• Info (north): brandenburger-jakobswege.de — stages, GPS data, pilgrim pass and current closures