Neckar-Baar-Jakobsweg

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: Horb am Neckar, Liebfrauenkirche / Blumberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar district; the Camino Ninja map ends at km 117.9 in town
• Length: 117.9 km
• Duration: 6 stages, averaging just under 20 km; fit walkers merge the first two days into one and reach Blumberg in 5 days
• Elevation: ↗ 2,014 m / ↘ 1,727 m
• Highest point: 887 m at km 114.3 between Eschach and Blumberg, on the final stage
• Landscape: the narrow Neckar valley with its shell-limestone slopes, the plateau between Rottweil and Villingen, the wide Baar between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura, and finally the hills on the edge of the Wutach
• Operator / Waymarking: designated by four districts in 2007, no association of its own; yellow stylized shell on a blue background, waymarked southbound only
• Traces of St. James: St. James's church in Ihlingen, dedicated to him since 1400; pilgrims fed at the Rottweil hospital in 1417; the sculpture "Jakobus krönt zwei Pilger" (St. James Crowning Two Pilgrims) in Villingen Minster; a St. Verena dedication in Hüfingen
• Accommodation: pilgrim hostel in Horb-Ihlingen, otherwise inns, guesthouses and hotels; book ahead
• Connecting routes: Schaffhauser-Zürcher-Weg and Thurgauer Klosterweg from Blumberg, Himmelreich Jakobsweg from Hüfingen, Rottenburg – Freiburg – Héricourt shared from Horb to Dettingen
• Best time: May to October; the Baar sits at 700 meters and spring comes late up there

Overview

The Neckar-Baar-Jakobsweg is a path between two seas. It starts in Horb on the Neckar, whose water runs via the Rhine into the North Sea, climbs onto the plateau beyond Rottweil, and arrives in Villingen on the Brigach, whose water flows via the Danube into the Black Sea. In Donaueschingen the Brigach and Breg join to form the Danube, and in Blumberg, at the finish, lies the spot where the Wutach spilled over from the Danube to the Rhine toward the end of the last Ice Age. So for a week you walk upstream, over the European watershed and back down, and arrive at a river the Rhine stole from the Danube.

That pilgrims walked here is on file in the records of a free imperial city: in 1417 Rottweil ordered that passing pilgrims be fed at its hospital. In 2007 four districts re-designated the route along the old traces; to this day it has no supporting association and no website of its own. What it does have are the Gäubahn, Ringzug and Schwarzwaldbahn railways running alongside almost the whole way, so every stage can be walked on its own, cut short, made up later. A trail without a press office, but with a paper trail.

Other Names

The districts and the signposts spell it Neckar-Baar-Jakobusweg, with the Latin Jakobus instead of the Germanized Jakob; both spellings mean the same route. The name is pure geography: Neckar for the first three days in the river valley, Baar for the high plain between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura. In the leaflet "5 Jakobuswege zwischen Schwarzwald und Schwäbischer Alb" (5 Ways of St. James between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura) it appears as one of five routes in the region, and in international route descriptions also as the Neckar-Baar-Weg (Sulz–Schaffhausen). Many guidebooks include the border stage over the Randen and so arrive at about 143 kilometers. On Camino Ninja the route ends in Blumberg; the stretch over the Randen belongs, for us, to the Schaffhauser-Zürcher-Weg, just as it does on the Swiss signs.

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

Ideal if you have just under a week and want a route that won't overwhelm you yet still has a story to tell: six days, no pass, highest point below 900 meters. Ideal for stage collectors and weekend pilgrims, because almost every stage town has a train station. And ideal if history tempts you more than panoramas: a Roman town, a council decree from 1417, a pilgrim sculpture from the 13th century.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you're looking for hostel romance and pilgrim camaraderie: there is no hostel network, you sleep in inns and guesthouses and book them in advance, and on some days you won't meet a single other pilgrim. Not for you if you expect paths along ridgelines: in the Neckar valley and on the Baar you walk a lot on farm tracks and bike paths, in places on asphalt. And if you have the Compostela in mind, know the math: from Blumberg, almost the entire distance still lies ahead of you.

Route & Landscape

Horb to Rottweil (km 0–52.4): The route starts at the Liebfrauenkirche in Horb, which has a St. James in its high altar and a winged altarpiece from around 1520, and after three kilometers reaches Ihlingen with its church of St. James. As far as Dettingen (km 6.0) you share the trail with the Rottenburg – Freiburg – Héricourt route, which turns west into the Black Forest there. You stay in the valley: via Glatt (km 10.0) with its moated castle to Sulz am Neckar (km 14.3), then along the slope above the river to Oberndorf (km 27.5); Sigmarswangen lies just under a kilometer off the route. Beyond Epfendorf (km 37.3) the route leaves the valley and climbs to Herrenzimmern (km 42.4) at 641 meters before descending via Villingendorf to Rottweil (km 52.4).

Rottweil to Blumberg (km 52.4–117.9): Beyond Rottweil the country opens up. Via Bühlingen and Wildenstein the route climbs onto the plateau and passes 730 meters at Weilersbach (km 71.0). The map point Villingen-Schwenningen (km 75.8) lies about two kilometers off the trail; plan in the detour to the minster and your lodging. Via Marbach (km 82.3) you follow the Brigach onto the Baar, an almost treeless high plain at 700 meters, to Donaueschingen (km 94.3) and the Danube spring, and on to Hüfingen (km 99.3) on the Breg. The final stage is the hilliest: via Hausen vor Wald, Opferdingen (km 109.4) and Eschach (km 111.8) up to the highest point of 887 meters at km 114.3 and down to Blumberg (km 117.6).

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

We show the route in 6 stages; the distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 117.9 km. Older guidebooks count 7 stages to Schaffhausen because they include the Randen stage. The first two days are short; if you're fit, walk Horb–Oberndorf in a single day.

1. Horb am Neckar → Sulz am Neckar (14.3 km) — a valley opener: Liebfrauenkirche, St. James's church in Ihlingen, Glatt moated castle; ideal for your arrival day.
2. Sulz am Neckar → Oberndorf am Neckar (13.2 km) — the shortest stage, on the slope above the Neckar, with views of the shell-limestone cliffs.
3. Oberndorf am Neckar → Rottweil (24.9 km) — the history stage: up to Herrenzimmern, and in the evening Rottweil with its minster and old town.
4. Rottweil → Villingen-Schwenningen (23.4 km) — the climb onto the plateau, via Wildenstein and Weilersbach; the map point lies 2 km off the trail.
5. Villingen-Schwenningen → Hüfingen (23.5 km) — the flattest stage, via Marbach along the Brigach to the Danube spring in Donaueschingen and on to Hüfingen.
6. Hüfingen → Blumberg (18.6 km) — the hilly final stage via Hausen vor Wald, Opferdingen and Eschach, with the highest point of 887 meters just before the finish; few places to stop for food.

The route is moderate and nowhere technically difficult. The 2,014 meters of ascent are spread over many short climbs out of the Neckar valley and the ascent beyond Rottweil; the Neckar falls, the route rises, from 409 to 697 meters. On the Baar there is hardly any shade and plenty of wind.

Two Saints as Signposts: St. James for Santiago, St. Verena for Zurzach

The finest testimony to this route is a chapel that carried its direction in its name. The little church in today's Nordstetten near Villingen was dedicated to St. James and St. Verena, and historian Thomas H. T. Wieners reads exactly that as signage: the patron saints served pilgrims "quasi als Wegweiser: einerseits zum erwünschten Endziel der großen Wallfahrt, dem Apostelgrab in Spanien, und andererseits zu einem wichtigen Etappenziel, nämlich der Grablege der heiligen Verena in Zurzach" (as signposts, so to speak: on the one hand to the longed-for final goal of the great pilgrimage, the apostle's tomb in Spain, and on the other to an important waypoint, namely the burial place of St. Verena in Zurzach). Whoever stood here had two destinations in mind, a reachable one on the High Rhine and a distant one in Galicia. The chapel burned down in the Thirty Years' War; its 13th-century sandstone sculpture "Jakobus krönt zwei Pilger" (St. James Crowning Two Pilgrims) survived and now stands in Villingen Minster. The signpost burned; the figure keeps on crowning pilgrims.

The second saint crosses your path again: the town parish church of Hüfingen is dedicated to St. Verena and St. Gall. And the strength of the pilgrim flow is documented by an administrative act. The districts' route guide writes: "Wenn die Reichsstadt Rottweil 1417 anordnete, durchziehende Pilger in ihrem Spital zu verpflegen, dann zeigt dies die Stärke des Pilgerstroms, wie er zwischen Schwäbischer Alb und Schwarzwald damals anzutreffen war." (When the free imperial city of Rottweil ordered in 1417 that passing pilgrims be fed at its hospital, this shows the strength of the pilgrim flow between the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest at the time.) The wording of the decree has not been digitized, but a town doesn't vote to feed exceptions; it votes to feed streams. That fits with the St. James dedication in Ihlingen since 1400, a St. James keystone from 1497 in Rottweil's Holy Cross Minster, and the Horb winged altarpiece from around 1520.

And the route has a pilgrim with a date: Hans Marx II von Bubenhofen, from a noble family seated in Leinstetten a few kilometers west of Dettingen, set out for Santiago in 1550. Nobody claims he arrived; what survives is an epitaph for the pilgrim who died on the way to Santiago. Which route he took, nobody knows either. After that it went quiet, until the return came in three steps: in 1994 the St. James stone in Ihlingen, in 2007 the designation by the four districts, in 2009 the support association of the Himmelreich-Jakobsweg, which from 2010 carried the route on from Hüfingen to Freiburg. First the stone, then the signs, then the network.

Highlights Along the Way

• Liebfrauenkirche, Horb (km 0) — the starting point, with St. James in the high altar and a winged altarpiece from around 1520; Horb passed to the Habsburgs with the County of Hohenberg in 1381 and remained part of Further Austria until 1805.
• St. James in Ihlingen (km 3.0) — Horb's former mother church, with parts dating from the 12th century, dedicated to St. James since 1400; next to it the St. James stone from 1994 and the pilgrim hostel.
• Glatt moated castle (km 10.0) — one of the few Renaissance moated castles in southern Germany, today the town of Sulz's cultural and museum center.
• Oberndorf am Neckar (km 27.5) — in 1811 Württemberg set up a rifle factory in the dissolved Augustinian monastery, from which the Mauser works grew; the monastery church still stands.
• Herrenzimmern (km 42.4) — castle ruin and ancestral seat of the Lords of Zimmern, whose family chronicle, the Zimmerische Chronik from the mid-16th century, ranks among the great sources of the Renaissance in Swabia.
• Rottweil (km 52.4) — founded as the Roman Arae Flaviae around AD 73, the oldest town in Baden-Württemberg, a free imperial city and, from 1519, in perpetual alliance with the Swiss Confederacy. Holy Cross Minster with its keystone from 1497, the hospital of 1417, a St. James relief on the Münsterplatz, and towering over it all the 246-meter test tower from 2017.
• Villingen Minster (Villingen-Schwenningen, km 75.8, 2 km off the trail) — Villingen received market rights from Emperor Otto III in 999 and has formed one town with Schwenningen since 1972; the minster holds the sculpture "Jakobus krönt zwei Pilger" and a St. James bell.
• Danube spring in Donaueschingen (km 94.3) — the walled spring basin in the park of the Princes of Fürstenberg, who have resided here since 1723; east of town the Brigach and Breg flow together to form the Danube.
• Hüfingen (km 99.3) — the town parish church of St. Verena and St. Gall, a Roman bath ruin from the 1st century, and the junction where the Himmelreich-Jakobsweg branches off to Freiburg.
• Blumberg (km 117.6) — the finish above the Wutach gorge; at Blumberg-Zollhaus station the Sauschwänzlebahn begins, built in 1890 as a strategic railway skirting Swiss territory and a heritage line since 1977.

Rhine or Danube? A Walk Across the Watershed

Between Rottweil and Villingen you cross the European watershed, with no sign to tell you. Until then everything trickling beside you flows into the Neckar and with it via the Rhine into the North Sea; after that into the Brigach and via the Danube into the Black Sea. On the fifth day you walk along the Brigach to its most famous confluence: in Donaueschingen the Brigach and Breg meet, and the old rhyme goes "Brigach und Breg bringen die Donau zuweg" (Brigach and Breg get the Danube going).

On the last day the story flips. The Wutach, flowing below Blumberg, was once the headwaters of the Danube. Toward the end of the last Ice Age a tributary of the Rhine cut its way backward into its valley and diverted it south; ever since, the Wutach has flowed into the Rhine, and near Blumberg lies the dry old valley through which it used to run to the Danube. The pilgrims carry on like the water: south to the Rhine.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

Those who arrive on foot almost always come from Rottenburg am Neckar. Several routes converge there, and the Rottenburg – Freiburg – Héricourt route takes you 29.5 kilometers via Seebronn and Mühlen to Horb; you then keep walking on the same trail as far as Dettingen, where the routes part. These are among the routes that lead to Rottenburg itself:

• Jakobsweg Rothenburg – Rottenburg — straight across Württemberg from Rothenburg ob der Tauber to the Neckar
• Beuroner Jakobsweg — the route of the Via Beuronensis, which has its hub in Rottenburg

If you're not arriving as a pilgrim, take the train: Horb is on the Gäubahn line Stuttgart–Singen, about an hour from Stuttgart. For sections, start in Sulz, Oberndorf, Rottweil, Villingen or Donaueschingen, all with stations on or near the route.

Continue the pilgrimage?

In Blumberg the map ends, but not the direction. Two routes into Switzerland begin here, sharing the first kilometers over the Randen and as far as Schaffhausen:

• Schaffhauser-Zürcher-Weg — 111.6 km over the Randen, via Schaffhausen, the Rhine Falls and Winterthur to Rapperswil-Jona on Lake Zurich, where it meets the Via Jacobi
• Thurgauer Klosterweg — 79.5 km over the Randen and via Schaffhausen up the Rhine and across Thurgau to the Knights Hospitaller commandery of Tobel

The stage to Schaffhausen crosses the Randen at up to 919 meters, with nowhere to stop for food. And there's a second door, right in the middle of your route: in Hüfingen the Himmelreich Jakobsweg branches off, 173.8 kilometers through the Höllental to Freiburg and through the Markgräflerland to Weil am Rhein. Both doors lead to Galicia in the end.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on all German Ways of St. James, you need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to collect stamps along the way, stay in pilgrim hostels and receive your Compostela in Santiago at the end. It's best to order it online ahead of time so it reaches you before your trip begins; stamps are available in Horb at the parish office and the tourist information, and in the parish offices and tourist information centers of the stage towns. With the Camino Ninja App you have the complete route offline; the easiest way to plan is right in the app, where you put together your stages and plan suitable accommodation at the same time.

Accommodation and waymarking. The only pilgrim hostel directly on the route is in Horb-Ihlingen; there's another in Leinstetten, about eight kilometers west of Dettingen, but not on the route. Otherwise you stay in inns, guesthouses and hotels. In Germany you follow the yellow stylized shell on a blue background, whose rays converge in your walking direction; the route is waymarked southbound only.

Season. The good season runs from May to October. The Baar counts as one of the coldest regions in Germany, and in April there may still be snow at 700 meters; in high summer, on the other hand, it's more pleasant up there than in the Neckar valley.

What the journey will cost you

Budget 70 to 100 € per day for a room with breakfast, a bakery lunch and dinner at an inn (as of October 2026). A bed in a guesthouse or inn usually costs 45 to 70 € per person in a double room, 60 to 90 € in a single; walking together saves real money here.

Getting there and back stays cheap: the Gäubahn, Ringzug and Schwarzwaldbahn are regional services, and with the Deutschlandticket for 63 € a month you can ride to and from every stage (as of October 2026). Honestly, that is the real luxury of this route.

Getting Here

To the start. Horb am Neckar is on the Gäubahn line Stuttgart–Singen, about an hour from Stuttgart, and reachable from Switzerland via Singen. The nearest airport is Stuttgart.

Along the way and from the finish. Sulz, Oberndorf and Rottweil are on the Gäubahn in the Neckar valley, Rottweil and Villingen on the Ringzug, Villingen and Donaueschingen on the Schwarzwaldbahn, Hüfingen on the Bregtalbahn. From Blumberg the Ringzug runs from Blumberg-Zollhaus via Donaueschingen or Immendingen back into the network; from Blumberg to Schaffhausen you take the bus. The nearest airport to the finish is Zurich.

• Rail: bahn.de — Gäubahn, Ringzug and Schwarzwaldbahn
• Ringzug: ringzug.de — regional trains between Rottweil, Villingen, Donaueschingen and Blumberg