Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Lorient)

At a glance

• Start / finish: Lorient (Morbihan), Moustoir district / Hennebont, junction with the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu
• Length: 15.8 km
• Duration: half a day, around four hours of walking
• Elevation: ↗ 95 m / ↘ 82 m; highest point 25 m at km 10.5 (Le Resto), lowest 1 m by the water
• Landscape: town, Scorff crossing, Blavet estuary, hamlets and hedgerows
• Waymarking: yellow shell on a blue background, placed by the Association bretonne
• Accommodation: accueils jacquaires in Lorient and Hennebont, plus a hotel with a pilgrim rate and a campsite in Hennebont; book at least 48 hours ahead, credencial required
• Connecting route: in Hennebont the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (at its km 232.3), on to Clisson

Overview

Lorient was founded in 1666 on a shipyard of the Compagnie des Indes and named after a ship, the "Soleil d'Orient", built there in 1669. A town younger than any medieval pilgrim road has no St James charters — it has something else instead: a milestone from Galicia and a "kilomètre zéro" of the Association bretonne, whose guide is expressly laid out "au départ de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu, ou de Pont-Croix, ou de Lorient". The Camino Ninja map calls this feeder route Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Lorient): 15.8 kilometres across the Scorff, to the estuary of the Blavet and upriver to Hennebont, where you join the main route. Honestly, it is only half a day — but one on which you set off from a stone from Galicia.

Route & stage

You start in the Moustoir district near the stadium, cross the Scorff at Kerhono (km 2.5) and reach Lanester at km 3.9, the shipyard workers' town, separated from Caudan only in 1909. After that the path belongs to the water: at km 6.9 you stand in Saint-Guénaël on the bank of the Blavet, at km 9.1 at the boat graveyard of Kerhervy, where from the 1920s the tuna boats of the Île de Groix spent the winter and, after the war, were left to lie. At Le Resto (km 10.5) you reach the highest point at 25 metres, then the path continues via Kergomo and Kerandré to Hennebont. The kilometres come from the Camino Ninja map. The Association bretonne's guide runs the Lorient stage as far as Brandérion (24.0 km); our route ends at the junction in Hennebont, and Brandérion lies 8.2 kilometres further on along the main route — together exactly the 24.0 kilometres of the guide.

1. Lorient → Hennebont (15.8 km) — Scorff crossing, Lanester, Saint-Guénaël, Kerhervy boat graveyard, Le Resto; flat, ↗ 95 m / ↘ 82 m, tarmac and riverside paths.

A town without a Middle Ages – and a stone from Galicia

Lorient did not exist in the great age of the St James pilgrims, and in 1943/44 the town was almost completely destroyed by Allied bombing and then rebuilt; we found no pilgrim hospices or charters here like those in Brest or Quimperlé. What the town has instead stands, according to the Lorient Bretagne Sud tourist office, right by the starting area: a "stèle milliaire de granit de Galice", a gift from the Galician ministry of culture and tourism. "Ce monolithe est visible devant le centre aquatique sur l'esplanade du Moustoir." Beneath it the tourist office does the maths: "Lorient – Compostelle : 1 979 km". No coincidence: Lorient is twinned with Vigo in Galicia.

The older history is not in the town but by the river. In the 6th century Saint Guénaël is said to have come ashore at Saint-Guénaël, the second abbot of Landévennec and successor to Saint Guénolé; the chapel now stands on the site of his monastery, which the Normans destroyed. Three kilometres further on, at Le Resto, lie the remains of a Gallo-Roman fish-salting works, protected as a Monument historique. You set off in a town from 1666 — and after seven kilometres you are a millennium and a half back in time.

How pilgrims reach this route – and where it leads

Nobody arrives on this route on foot; you travel to it: Lorient is the starting point and is easy to reach by TGV. The variant is a shortcut for anyone who does not want to start at the Pointe Saint-Mathieu, in Pont-Croix (see Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Pont-Croix)) or from the north on the Voie de Morlaix. The main route itself does not pass through Lorient but via Pont-Scorff — eight and a half kilometres away on our map.

In Hennebont the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu takes over at its kilometre 232.3; from there it is another 296.9 kilometres via Brandérion, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, Vannes, Redon and Nantes to Clisson. There the Chemin Vendéen begins, leading to Saint-Jean-d'Angély, where you switch to the Via Turonensis and, via Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, reach the Camino Francés to Santiago.

Preparation & practical info

The variant is waymarked in yellow and blue and is covered in the Association bretonne's free PDF guide to the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (edition of 14 April 2024, updated every November). The association's accommodation list for the Quimperlé – Redon section includes Lorient: one accueil jacquaire each in Lorient and Hennebont (private hosts, "participation aux frais"), plus a hotel with "prix pèlerins" and the campsite in Hennebont, and a parish gîte with four places in Brandérion. The association's rule applies here too: book at least 48 hours ahead and show your credencial. The association gives the credencial free of charge to its members; if you come from further afield, bring one with you. Hotel rooms in Lorient or Hennebont: around €60–100 (guide price, as of October 2026). The easiest way to plan your stages and accommodation is directly in the Camino Ninja app.

Getting there

Lorient has a TGV station; since the Bretagne–Pays de la Loire high-speed line opened, you can get there from Paris-Montparnasse in around three hours. Hennebont lies on the same line and has a TER stop with connections to Lorient and Auray.

• Rail in France: sncf-connect.com — TGV Paris – Lorient, TER Lorient – Hennebont
• Regional transport in Brittany: breizhgo.bzh — TER trains and buses in Brittany