Via Lemovicensis Southern Variant

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine in Vézelay / Gargilesse-Dampierre in the Creuse valley, where it joins the main route of the Via Lemovicensis
• Length: 281.9 km
• Duration: 15 stages in our breakdown, averaging just under 19 km; 12 to 13 days at a brisk pace
• Elevation: ↗ 2,211 m / ↘ 2,325 m
• Highest point: 341 m at km 54.7, between Saint-Révérien and Sancenay in the Nivernais
• Landscape: pastures and sunken lanes on the edge of the Morvan, the forests of the Nivernais, the Loire and the Allier near Nevers, the hedgerow country of the Berry, and finally the rocky valley of the Creuse
• Operator / Waymarking: Amis et Pèlerins de Saint-Jacques de la Voie de Vézelay (founded in 1999); the scallop-shell sign of the Ways of St. James, in places the white-and-red GR blazes
• Traces of St. James: the Codex Calixtinus, around 1140, with the route via Vézelay; a statue of St. James in Nevers Cathedral; the rotunda of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France (1998)
• Accommodation: gîtes d'étape, donation-based accueils jacquaires, two refuges run by the waymarking association in Ainay-le-Château and Bouzais, and the pilgrim house of the Bernadette sanctuary in Nevers
• Connecting routes: Via Lemovicensis (main route via Bourges, shared from Gargilesse onward); feeder routes to Vézelay: Voie de Sens, Via Campaniensis, Gy – Vézelay, Trier – Vézelay
• Best time: May, June and September; the association's refuges are open from March 15 to October 15

Overview

Past Vézelay you face a choice the Codex Calixtinus never knew about: north via Bourges or south via Nevers. The main route takes in Bourges Cathedral; the Southern Variant takes in two places where Jerusalem and Lourdes are closer than you'd expect. Nevers is where Bernadette Soubirous lies, the visionary of Lourdes who entered the convent of Saint-Gildard in 1866 and never saw Lourdes again. And in Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre stands a round church that a lord of the Berry had built as a replica of the Holy Sepulchre after his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The sentence you'll want to read out loud on this route: you're walking to Santiago, and on the way you pass Lourdes and Jerusalem without ever leaving the heart of France.

In between lies the France that usually vanishes between two chapters of the guidebooks: the Nivernais, with its wooded ridges and the anchor forges of Guérigny, and the Berry, with hedgerows, cattle pastures and villages where the bakery is the last shop standing. Honestly, the network of lodgings is thin, and the route expects you to call ahead the day before and manage a few sentences of French. In return, in Sancoins or Le Châtelet you won't be greeted as a customer but as an event.

Other Names

In France the branch is called the Voie de Vézelay par Nevers or the variante sud de la Voie de Vézelay, as opposed to the main route par Bourges. The Latin name Via Lemovicensis, after Limoges, covers the whole route system; we list the Nevers branch as the Via Lemovicensis Southern Variant, and in German you'll also see Südvariante or Nevers-Variante der Via Lemovicensis.

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

Ideal if you want to walk the Via Lemovicensis in full and a Gothic cathedral means less to you than a place like Saint-Gildard, where people have sat in silence before a glass reliquary for a hundred years. Ideal, too, as a self-contained pilgrimage of a good two weeks: Burgundy, the Loire and the Berry, no mountains, a genuine pilgrimage town in the middle and one of the most beautiful villages in France at the end.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you're looking for hostel conversations and columns of pilgrims: between Nevers and La Châtre you may go days without meeting another pilgrim to Santiago. Not for you if you want to set off without planning; in Apremont, Le Châtelet or Saint-Révérien there are only a handful of beds, and many gîtes want to know the day before that you're coming. And not for you if you need shade in July and August: the hedgerow country of the Berry is open, the lanes are paved, and village fountains are rarer than church towers.

Route & Landscape

Burgundy and the Nivernais (km 0–101.9): From the basilica you head down to Saint-Père with its Gothic Church of Notre-Dame, cross the gorge of the Cure at Pierre-Perthuis and walk via Bazoches (km 15.2), where Vauban had his château, through pastures and sunken lanes on the western edge of the Morvan to Corbigny (km 35.3). Then it gets more wooded: via Saint-Révérien (km 53.8) and the highest point at km 54.7 to Prémery (km 71.2) with its collegiate church, and through the forests of the old ironworking country to Guérigny (km 87.9). Via Chantemerle you reach Nevers (km 101.9) on the Loire.

The Loire, the Allier and the Berry (km 101.9–281.9): Past Nevers you cross the Loire and follow the Allier via Gimouille and Cuffy to Apremont-sur-Allier (km 117.6), then through the bocage to Sancoins (km 134.8). Via Ainay-le-Château (km 163.0) with its ring of walls and Charenton-du-Cher you come to Saint-Amand-Montrond (km 182.2) on the Cher; Orval lies 0.7 kilometers off the route. Then the Berry proper begins: Bouzais, Loye-sur-Arnon, Le Châtelet (km 209.0), the little wine town of Châteaumeillant (km 221.7), and La Châtre (km 240.2) in George Sand country. Montgivray and the Château de Sarzay each lie a good kilometer off the trail. Via Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (km 258.5) and Cluis (km 266.9) the route descends into the Creuse valley to Gargilesse-Dampierre (km 281.9).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

Distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 281.9 km. We show 15 fairly short stages so that Nevers gets half a day for Saint-Gildard; faster walkers can combine Prémery–Nevers (30.7 km) and Nevers–Sancoins (32.9 km) into one day each.

1. Vézelay → Bazoches (15.2 km) — down to Saint-Père, across the Cure at Pierre-Perthuis, arrival at Vauban's château.
2. Bazoches → Corbigny (20.1 km) — pastures and sunken lanes on the edge of the Morvan, via Vignes-le-Haut and Anthien.
3. Corbigny → Saint-Révérien (18.5 km) — via Chitry-les-Mines and Guipy up into the Nivernais.
4. Saint-Révérien → Prémery (17.4 km) — the highest point at 341 m right at the start, then forest and hamlets.
5. Prémery → Guérigny (16.7 km) — through the forest country of the old forges, few places to stop.
6. Guérigny → Nevers (14.0 km) — a short day; the rest belongs to Saint-Gildard and the old town.
7. Nevers → Apremont-sur-Allier (15.7 km) — across the Loire and along the Allier to the stonecutters' village.
8. Apremont-sur-Allier → Sancoins (17.2 km) — via Grossouvre through the bocage to the little cattle-market town.
9. Sancoins → Ainay-le-Château (28.2 km) — the longest stage, quiet and with few villages; at the end, one of the association's refuges.
10. Ainay-le-Château → Saint-Amand-Montrond (19.2 km) — via Charenton-du-Cher to the Cher, the first real town since Nevers.
11. Saint-Amand-Montrond → Le Châtelet (26.8 km) — via Bouzais, with the second refuge, and Loye-sur-Arnon into the Berry.
12. Le Châtelet → Châteaumeillant (12.7 km) — a short day into the wine town, with time for the Gris.
13. Châteaumeillant → La Châtre (18.5 km) — via Néret and Fontenay into George Sand country.
14. La Châtre → Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (18.3 km) — hills and hedgerows, with the rotunda waiting at the end.
15. Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre → Gargilesse-Dampierre (23.4 km) — via Cluis and Les Minières down into the Creuse valley.

Technically nothing here is difficult: farm tracks, forest paths and lots of little paved lanes, with only 2,211 meters of climbing over 281.9 kilometers. What wears you out is the distance between bakery and bed, above all between Sancoins and Ainay-le-Château and on the plateaus of the Nivernais.

“I came here to hide” – Bernadette in Nevers

On July 4, 1866, Bernadette Soubirous left Lourdes, and on July 7 she arrived at the motherhouse of the Sœurs de la Charité in Saint-Gildard. Eight years earlier, the miller's daughter had seen her apparitions in the grotto of Massabielle; by now thousands were making pilgrimages to the grotto – and the young woman at the center of it all moved a good 500 kilometers away as the crow flies, north. Her own words on it, as handed down by the Sanctuary of Lourdes: “Je suis venue ici pour me cacher” – I came here to hide. And: “À Lourdes, ma mission est finie” (in Lourdes, my mission is over). As Sister Marie-Bernard she took her vows in 1867, worked in the infirmary and the sacristy, and died on April 16, 1879, at the age of 35. She never returned to Lourdes.

What came after is the reason some 200,000 people a year now come to Nevers. During her beatification process her body was exhumed three times, in 1909, 1919 and 1925; since 1925 it has lain in a glass reliquary in the chapel of Saint-Gildard, face and hands covered with a thin layer of wax. She was beatified in 1925 and canonized on December 8, 1933. Lourdes still draws millions – and on the Southern Variant you walk past the woman who left Lourdes to find some peace.

In practice, that means: plan Nevers as a half rest day. The chapel is open daily from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2 to 6 p.m., and until 10 p.m. for guests of the house. The Espace Bernadette at 34 Rue Saint-Gildard has 60 rooms for 130 people and its own gîte d'étape with 15 beds; as a pilgrim to Santiago you sleep where Lourdes groups usually stay, and you get your stamp right there.

Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre: Jerusalem, Rebuilt in the Berry

Caliph al-Hakim had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem destroyed in 1009; when pilgrims from the West visited it in the 11th century, it was a building site. One of them was Eudes de Déols, lord of Châteauroux. After his return he had a church built in Neuvy modeled on the Holy Sepulchre, constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries: a rotunda 19.45 meters across, carried by eleven columns – twelve apostles minus Judas. Those who couldn't get to Jerusalem went to Neuvy.

In 1257 Cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux, papal legate and confidant of Saint Louis, brought two drops of Christ's blood and a piece of the Holy Sepulchre to Neuvy; ever since, the relic has been carried in procession on Easter Monday. Prosper Mérimée put the church on the very first list of Monuments historiques in 1840, Viollet-le-Duc restored it, Pius X raised it to a basilica in 1910, and since 1998 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France. Admission is free. Walk slowly once around the columns in the ambulatory: it's the shortest loop on the entire Way of St. James.

Highlights Along the Way

• Vézelay (km 0) — Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979; in 1146 Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade here. Pilgrim blessing at morning Mass.
• Pierre-Perthuis (km 7.8) — two bridges stacked one above the other over the gorge of the Cure, plus the pierced rock that gave the village its name.
• Bazoches (km 15.2) — the château Vauban bought in 1675 with the reward Louis XIV gave him for taking Maastricht (1673); he has lain buried in the village church since 1707, and Napoleon had his heart moved to Les Invalides in 1808.
• Guérigny (km 87.9) — Forges royales de la Chaussade: Pierre Babaud de La Chaussade forged anchors and chains for the navy here, the state bought the works in 1781, and the fires only went out in 1971. Ships' anchors from the forest, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest sea.
• Nevers (km 101.9) — Saint-Gildard with Bernadette's reliquary; the Cathedral of Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte with a Romanesque choir at one end and a Gothic one at the other, a 6th-century baptistery and, after the bombing raid of July 16, 1944, new glazing between 1976 and 2009: 130 windows, 1,052 square meters of contemporary stained glass.
• Apremont-sur-Allier (km 117.6) — once a stonecutters' village whose limestone traveled by flatboat down the Allier and the Loire to Orléans Cathedral; what you see today was rebuilt from 1930 onward by the industrialist Eugène Schneider in the medieval style of the Berry.
• Ainay-le-Château (km 163.0) — a little town behind medieval walls and gates, with one of the association's refuges.
• Châteaumeillant (km 221.7) — a wine village with roots going back to Gallic times; VDQS since 1965, AOC since November 22, 2010, famous for its pale Gris made from Gamay.
• Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (km 258.5) — the rotunda modeled on the Holy Sepulchre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Gargilesse-Dampierre (km 281.9) — one of the “Plus Beaux Villages de France” on the Creuse, with a 12th-century Romanesque church whose crypt has frescoes from the 13th and 16th centuries, and the Villa Algira, George Sand's second home, a gift from her companion Alexandre Manceau.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

The route begins where the feeder routes from the north and east converge: on the hill of Vézelay. If you're already on foot, you'll usually arrive on one of these routes:

• Voie de Sens — from the Paris Basin via Sens to Vézelay
• Via Campaniensis — from Champagne
• Gy – Vézelay — from Franche-Comté, via Saint-Père up to Vézelay, on the first stretch of our variant in the opposite direction
• Trier – Vézelay — the long route from Germany through Lorraine

If you're starting fresh in Vézelay, you decide at the edge of town: the Via Lemovicensis via La Charité-sur-Loire and Bourges, or the Southern Variant via Nevers. The two branches meet again on the Creuse; which one you choose is a matter of cathedral versus convent.

Continue the pilgrimage?

Yes, and without changing trains. In Gargilesse-Dampierre you're back on the Via Lemovicensis, which from here on leads, together with the Bourges pilgrims, via Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, Limoges and Périgueux to the Basque Country. Around 1140 the Codex Calixtinus describes exactly this continuation: “Alia per Sanctam Mariam Magdalenam Viziliaci et per Sanctum Leonardum Lemovicensem et per urbem Petragoricensem pergit” – another route goes by way of St. Mary Magdalene of Vézelay, St. Leonard in the Limousin and the city of Périgueux.

Near Ostabat the Lemovicensis meets the Via Podiensis and the Via Turonensis, and in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port the Camino Francés to Santiago begins. If you only walk the Southern Variant, you travel home from Gargilesse by train via Argenton-sur-Creuse and come back to exactly this spot next year.

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 trip; members of the waymarking association get it free, and you can also pick it up at their 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 your stages together and plan suitable accommodation along the way.

Accommodation. On this branch the association runs two refuges, in Ainay-le-Château and Bouzais, with five beds each, open from March 15 to October 15, with check-in for pilgrims holding a credencial from 4 p.m. Otherwise you sleep in gîtes d'étape, chambres d'hôtes and with accueils jacquaires, private pilgrim hosts who serve dinner at the family table. Call the day before; in the small villages between Corbigny and Prémery and between Saint-Amand and Châteaumeillant, that isn't a courtesy but a requirement. The standard directory: “Miam Miam Dodo – Voie de Vézelay”.

Season and language. May, June and September are ideal; in winter many gîtes are closed. On this branch, a few sentences of French aren't an ornament but your most important piece of gear.

What the journey will cost you

France is more expensive than Spain. In the association's refuges you pay what you can – “libre participation” according to your means and the services received. Gîtes d'étape usually run 15 to 25 € a night, half board with dinner and breakfast 35 to 45 €, and accueils jacquaires often work on a donation basis (as of October 2026). At the Espace Bernadette in Nevers, rooms start at 36.85 € including breakfast (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. Supermarkets exist only in the little towns; in between, the village bakery is often the only shop, and it's 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.

Along the way. Nevers is the best place to join or leave the route: direct trains to Paris-Bercy in just over two hours.

From the finish. Gargilesse-Dampierre has no train station; the nearest railway town is Argenton-sur-Creuse, a good 10 kilometers away, with trains via Châteauroux to Paris-Austerlitz. For the last stretch you'll need a taxi, an on-demand bus or a friendly host.

• Rail: sncf-connect.com — connections to Sermizelles-Vézelay, Nevers and Argenton-sur-Creuse
• Waymarking association: vezelay-compostelle.eu — refuges, credencial, guidebook
• Nevers: sainte-bernadette-soubirous-nevers.com — sanctuary and Espace Bernadette pilgrim lodging