Jakobsweg Kärnten

At a glance

• Start / Finish: Dravograd (Slovenia) / Lienz (East Tyrol)
• Length: 260.5 km
• Duration: 12–14 days
• Elevation: ↗ 3,757 m / ↘ 3,440 m
• Highest point: around 900 m
• Stages: 13 (the official ARGE staging plus the East Tyrolean final leg)
• Direction: east → west, upstream along the Drava
• Responsible body: ARGE Jakobsweg Kärnten (founded September 15, 2011), today ARGE Pilgern in Kärnten
• Waymarking: yellow scallop on a blue field, aluminum and wooden signs
• Connection east: Jakobsweg Graz via Maribor to Dravograd; Jakobsweg Weststeiermark joins at Lavamünd
• Connection west: Jakobsweg Osttirol from Lienz
• Best time: April to October

Overview

The Jakobsweg Kärnten is a route along a river, and the river runs toward you. 260.5 kilometers from Dravograd on the Slovenian border to Lienz in East Tyrol, and the Drava is beside you the whole time — 749 kilometers long, the fourth-longest tributary of the Danube, its source at the Toblacher Feld in South Tyrol. You walk from Unterdrauburg, as Dravograd was called until 1918, to Oberdrauburg: two castles, one river, two weeks in between. Klagenfurt the route leaves to your right. It follows the Drava through the Jauntal and the Rosental, bilingual Carinthia, where the village signs read Šentjakob beneath St. Jakob, and only from Villach does the hill route become a valley route.

That the churches stand by the water and not in the middle of the province has a reason with a date: in 811 Charlemagne made the Drava the northern boundary of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, and from there came the Christianization of Carantania. What this route shows you is therefore older than any legend of St. James — in St. Peter in Holz the mosaic of a Roman governor who, in the 5th century, made a donation „pro voto suscepto", in fulfillment of a vow; in Villach the largest church of St. James in Carinthia, which an earthquake took apart down to the tower in 1348; in Lavant a bishop's church from the refugee years after the end of Rome. 3,757 meters of ascent over 260 kilometers: this route demands stamina, not mountain experience.

Other names

Officially it is called Jakobsweg Kärnten, but strictly speaking it is a section, not a route of its own: the Carinthian part of the Südösterreichischer Jakobsweg, which runs from Graz via Slovenia, Carinthia, East Tyrol and South Tyrol to the Brenner and Innsbruck. So you will find both names on the same signposts. In Slovene the Way of St. James is Jakobova pot — though the official Slovenian network with its three branches runs farther south; what arrives at Dravograd is the Slovenian section of the Südösterreichischer Jakobsweg, which we list as the Jakobsweg Graz.

In the bilingual south of Carinthia almost every village has two names: Villach is Beljak, Ferlach is Borovlje, the Rosental is Rož, the Jauntal Podjuna, and the St. James village par excellence is Šentjakob v Rožu. Dravograd, the starting point, was called Unterdrauburg until 1918 — and the route fittingly ends just past Oberdrauburg. And because the last fourteen kilometers from Nörsach already lie in East Tyrol, „Kärnten" is, to be honest, a name that no longer quite fits at the finish: the official ARGE staging ends in Oberdrauburg, we carry on to Lienz because that is where the connection is.

Ideal for — and not so much for

This route is ideal if you want to walk for two weeks straight without needing mountain experience. 3,757 meters of ascent over 260.5 kilometers is next to nothing for an Alpine route, the highest point is around 900 meters, and the second half follows the river valley. Add a cultural density you would not expect of this region: two late-antique bishops' cities, a Roman mosaic in situ, a 93.87-meter Gothic church tower and a handful of St. James churches that really are St. James churches and not just named that way. And if you walk in high summer, you can drop your pack at the Klopeiner See — at up to 28 degrees the warmest bathing lake in Austria — and jump in.

Honestly, though, it is not for you if you are looking for Spanish hostel life. There is no network of pilgrim hostels here; you sleep in inns, guesthouses and private rooms and had better book ahead. The yellow scallop is well placed but not seamless — without a map or GPS track you will end up searching at some point. And if you dislike asphalt, you should know: in the Drau Valley the pilgrim route runs in places on the Drau cycle path R1, on the first stage even unavoidably, because the stream crossing at the border west of Vič is closed. Sections like these are planned for beforehand, not on the road.

Route & landscape

The route begins in Dravograd, crosses the state border at Vič and reaches via Rabenstein — with the first restored church of St. James on the Carinthian side — the village of Lavamünd. From there it heads west through the Jauntal via Schwabegg, Rinkenberg and Kühnsdorf to the Klopeiner See, turns via Stein im Jauntal and Abtei into the Rosental and follows the south side of the Drava beneath the Karawanks via St. Margareten, Ferlach, Feistritz and St. Jakob im Rosental to the Faaker See and Villach. That is the hilly part: terraces, woods, meadows, villages with two name signs, and to the south always the chain of the Karawanks.

From Villach the route becomes a valley route. Via Gummern, Kellerberg and Feistritz an der Drau it runs to Spittal an der Drau and on to St. Peter in Holz, where the late-antique bishop's city of Teurnia lies beneath the parish church. After that the Drau Valley grows narrower and more alpine: Sachsenburg, Steinfeld, Greifenburg, Dellach, Oberdrauburg. Beyond Nörsach you leave Carinthia, pass the Lavanter Kirchbichl with its early Christian bishop's church and reach Lienz after some fourteen East Tyrolean kilometers. The whole time the Drava is beside you — and the whole time it flows toward you.

Stages, terrain & difficulty

The ARGE Jakobsweg Kärnten officially divides its route into ten stages from Dravograd to Oberdrauburg (237.4 km, walking times 4 to 7.5 hours). Because some of them are long at 26 to 28 kilometers, and because our route continues to Lienz, we divide it into 13 stages — the kilometers are calibrated exactly to the total length of 260.5 km, and the sum works out without rounding: 237.4 km of official stages plus 23.1 km from Oberdrauburg to Lienz.

1. Dravograd – Vič – Rabenstein – Lavamünd – Neuhaus (15.0 km) — border crossing, first St. James church, Drau cycle path.
2. Neuhaus – Schwabegg – Rinkenberg – Kühnsdorf (19.2 km) — into the Jauntal.
3. Kühnsdorf – St. Kanzian am Klopeiner See – Stein im Jauntal – Abtei (22.7 km) — bathing-lake stage, then Gallizien and Abtei.
4. Abtei – St. Margareten im Rosental (13.9 km) — crossing into the Rosental beneath the Karawanks.
5. St. Margareten – Ferlach (12.0 km) — into the gunsmiths' town.
6. Ferlach – Kappel an der Drau – St. Johann – Feistritz im Rosental (13.2 km) — south side of the Drava.
7. Feistritz – Maria Elend – Rosenbach – St. Jakob im Rosental (12.0 km) — to the St. James church of Šentjakob.
8. St. Jakob im Rosental – Ledenitzen – Egg am Faaker See – Villach (26.9 km) — past the Faaker See to the largest St. James church in Carinthia.
9. Villach – Gummern – Kellerberg – Feistritz an der Drau (27.2 km) — valley variant along the Drava.
10. Feistritz an der Drau – Spittal an der Drau – St. Peter in Holz (20.6 km) — to Spittal and the bishop's city of Teurnia.
11. St. Peter in Holz – Sachsenburg – Kleblach – Steinfeld (26.7 km) — the Drau Valley narrows.
12. Steinfeld – Greifenburg – Berg – Dellach – Oberdrauburg (28.0 km) — the longest day, end of the official Carinthian stages.
13. Oberdrauburg – Nörsach – Lavant – Lienz (23.1 km) — through East Tyrol, past the Lavanter Kirchbichl into the Lienz basin.

Difficulty: technically low, physically moderate. Stages 8, 9, 11 and 12 at 27 to 28 kilometers are the heavyweights; everything before them can easily be cut differently. A note on the routing: the official route climbs beyond Villach via Weißenstein to the St. James church of St. Jakob ob Ferndorf; our route stays in the Drau Valley — same kilometers, flatter profile, one St. James church fewer. There are stations in Villach, Spittal, Greifenburg, Oberdrauburg and Lienz; the Drau Valley is a route you can shorten at any time.

You walk against the river

The Drava is the thread of this route, and it also drew it. In 811 Charlemagne fixed it as the northern boundary of the Patriarchate of Aquileia; south of the river Aquileia did the missionary work, north of it Salzburg. The churches of this route therefore stand by the water, not in the middle of the province — and the oldest of them stands in Teurnia near St. Peter in Holz, the late-antique „metropolis Norici", which perished around 600 with the Slavic settlement. In 1910/11 Rudolf Egger excavated a mosaic there, 6.10 by 4.25 meters, twelve panels with stags, storks and eagles, and an inscription: „Urs(u)s v(ir) s(pectabilis) cum coni(u)g(e) sua Ursina pro (v)oto sus(cepto) fecer(u)nt h(a)ec" — Ursus, a man of high standing, had this made with his wife Ursina in fulfillment of a vow. A vow is the core of every pilgrimage. Here it stands in stone by the wayside, 700 years before the first St. James church of this route is documented.

That came in 1136, in Villach, and its history is the whole route in one building. On January 25, 1348 the Friuli earthquake destroyed St. James down to the tower; the choir was rebuilt in 1360/70, the nave in 1450/60. In 1526 Sigmund von Dietrichstein granted the citizens the right to appoint a Protestant pastor, and until March 1600 the largest St. James church in Carinthia was Protestant — in exactly the 74 years in which the pilgrimage to Santiago collapsed across Europe. Its tower measures 93.87 meters and is the highest church tower in the province. A Carinthian Santiago pilgrim known by name our research did not find — no scallop on a tomb slab, no confraternity, no will. But it did find a traveler with a stopwatch: Paolo Santonino, chancellor of the Patriarch of Aquileia, accompanied his bishop from 1485 to 1487 on 114 days of travel via Lienz, Greifenburg and Villach and noted in his „Itinerarium" the traveling speed — four to five kilometers an hour. It is to this day exactly the pace at which you walk here.

Highlights along the way

• Rabenstein (Lavamünd) — the first restored St. James church on the Carinthian side, a few kilometers past the border.
• Klopeiner See — at up to 28 degrees the warmest bathing lake in Austria, right on stage three.
• Gallizien / Galicija — you walk through Galicija to reach Galicia one day; a coincidence of names, no proven kinship.
• St. Jakob im Rosental / Šentjakob v Rožu — built between 1136 and 1161 as a proprietary church and given to Ossiach Abbey, ravaged by the Turks in 1489, high altar of 1656.
• Villach, parish church of St. James — first mentioned in 1136, rebuilt after the 1348 earthquake as a late Gothic hall church; at 93.87 m the highest church tower in Carinthia.
• Teurnia / St. Peter in Holz — „metropolis Norici" and bishop's seat in the 5th century; the Ursus mosaic has lain under a roof at its find spot since the 1910/11 excavation.
• Greifenburg — a station on Paolo Santonino's visitation journeys of 1485–1487.
• Oberdrauburg — namesake of the starting point, end of the official Carinthian staging.
• Lavanter Kirchbichl — early Christian bishop's church succeeding Aguntum, destroyed around 400; four building phases from the 5th to the 9th century.
• Detour: St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal — founded 1091, Carinthia's oldest active monastery, about 13 km off the route from Lavamünd.

How pilgrims reach this trail

From the east two routes lead in, both from Graz. The Jakobsweg Graz is the Südösterreichischer Jakobsweg according to Peter Lindenthal: from the St. James church in Thal through Graz and down the Mur into Slovenia as far as Maribor; from there the Camino Slovenia (Maribor) follows the Drava to Dravograd, the starting point of this route. In Slovenia this section is described but practically unmarked; map and GPS track are a must there. The second is the Jakobsweg Weststeiermark: from Graz via the St. James church in Thal, Köflach and the Soboth down to Lavamünd, where it meets this route eight kilometers after Dravograd. If you want to skip the Slovenian loop, take it — waymarked throughout, but with considerably more climbing.

If you travel in directly, Klagenfurt is your interchange: from Klagenfurt main station you travel via Bleiburg in just under two hours to Dravograd, which has its own station on the Slovenian Drava Valley line (ÖBB and Slovenske železnice, around 15 to 28 €, as of September 2026). One tip that saves trouble: there is no scheduled bus between Dravograd and Lavamünd — if you only want to walk the Austrian part, you need a taxi to get there.

Carrying on?

In Lienz nothing ends, it is handed over. The Jakobsweg Osttirol leads in 47.6 kilometers via the Lienzer Klause, Assling, Strassen and Sillian to the state border at Winnebach, where the Jakobsweg Südtirol takes over and runs 295.4 kilometers via Innichen, Bruneck, Brixen, the Ritten, Bolzano and the Vinschgau to Müstair — where the Jakobsweg Graubünden connects. If you would rather turn north at Neustift Abbey, you walk the Jakobsweg Brenner over the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck and from there continue on the Jakobsweg Österreich toward the Arlberg.

A bonus for everyone who has grown fond of the Drava: on the first stage of the Jakobsweg Südtirol you pass its source at the Toblacher Feld. By then you will have accompanied the river for some 300 kilometers against its flow — there it ends, and you walk on.

Preparation & practicalities

The season runs from about April to October; in high summer the Drau Valley is warm, but then you can actually swim in the Klopeiner See. You don't strictly need a pilgrim passport (Credencial) here, but you should have one: the shop of the Diocese of Gurk sells it for 3.00 € (12 pages with six stamp fields each, as of September 2026), and whoever walks at least 100 kilometers on foot receives a certificate at the end. You collect stamps at parishes, inns and tourist offices along the route.

When it comes to accommodation, think differently: a network of classic pilgrim hostels does not exist on this route. You sleep in inns, guesthouses and private rooms; the Turnerhof in Pudlach near Neuhaus is listed among the designated pilgrim lodgings, and the ARGE Pilgern in Kärnten arranges pilgrim packages with bed and breakfast. Booking ahead here is not a convenience but a planning necessity — easiest directly in the Camino Ninja app, where you put your stages together and plan suitable accommodation right along with them.

For orientation: the yellow scallop on blue is well placed but not seamless. Take a GPS track, plan stages 8, 9, 11 and 12 deliberately — they are the longest — and pack your ID: you start in Slovenia and after a few kilometers cross a Schengen border where nobody is standing.

What this trail costs

Austria is not a cheap country, and without a hostel network the cheapest building block falls away. Reckon with 40 to 65 € per person per night with breakfast for private rooms and simple guesthouses, at the upper end in Villach, Spittal and Lienz; inns with half board cost more (as of September 2026). Shopping instead of eating out gets you to a daily budget of around 60 to 80 €; if you eat at the inn in the evening, you land at 80 to 100 €.

The fixed costs are modest: 3.00 € for the pilgrim passport, around 15 to 28 € for the train from Klagenfurt to Dravograd (as of September 2026). If you don't have two weeks, save via the railway: Villach and Spittal lie directly on the route, so it can be broken into sections almost at will.

Getting there

To the start (Dravograd): Dravograd has its own station on the Slovenian Drava Valley line. From Klagenfurt main station you travel via Bleiburg in just under two hours (ÖBB and Slovenske železnice); an alternative runs via Bleiburg and Prevalje with a bus connection in about two and a half hours. From Villach or Klagenfurt the journey fits into a morning.

From the finish (Lienz): Lienz is on the ÖBB Drau Valley line to Spittal-Millstättersee and Villach and on the Pustertalbahn to Innichen and Franzensfeste. Villach main station is the hub of the region with direct connections to Salzburg, Vienna, Munich, Italy and Slovenia.

• Trains Austria: oebb.at — Klagenfurt – Bleiburg – Dravograd; Lienz – Spittal – Villach
• Trains Slovenia: potniski.sz.si — Slovenske železnice, Drava Valley line Maribor – Dravograd
• Stations on the route: Dravograd, Villach, Spittal-Millstättersee, Greifenburg, Oberdrauburg, Lienz
• Note: no scheduled bus between Dravograd and Lavamünd — transfer by taxi only