Partner
Association bretonne des Amis de Saint-Jacques
Brittany's St James association, founded in 1996 and based in Quimper: it has waymarked eight 'kilometre zero' starts and over 1,600 km of routes in Brittany, publishes free guides, issues the credencial and arranges private pilgrim hosts.
The Caminos on the map
Caminos of this partner
Chemin Vendéen235.1 kilometres, 11 stages, highest point 127 metres, lowest one metre: the Chemin Vendéen begins in Clisson — a town that burned down in 1793 and was rebuilt in Tuscan forms from 1798 — and runs through the Bocage vendéen via Montaigu, Saint-Fulgent and Mouchamps to Chantonnay. Then the landscape tips into the plain: Nieul-sur-l'Autise with the only completely preserved Romanesque cloister in western France, the island abbey of Maillezais, where Rabelais lived for fourteen years, and the Marais poitevin with its 8,200 kilometres of canals. In Saint-Jean-d'Angély the route ends at the Abbaye Royale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, founded in 817 to house the head of John the Baptist — today UNESCO World Heritage and the transfer point onto the Via Turonensis. To be honest: the Vendée section is a modern routing through a historic landscape, marked since 1999 by the pilgrim association in both directions — blue towards Compostela, the association logo towards Mont-Saint-Michel. And between Chantonnay and Nieul there is no shop for 62.8 kilometres.Explore this Camino- Voie des Plantagenêts523.1 kilometres, 23 stages, 3,333 metres of ascent, highest point 216 metres: the Voie des Plantagenêts begins on the tidal flats below Mont-Saint-Michel and runs via Saint-James, Fougères, Vitré and Pouancé to Angers, where Henry II Plantagenet had the Hôpital Saint-Jean founded in 1175 as penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. It then follows the tuffeau limestone: Brissac-Quincé, the cave village of Rochemenier, Doué-la-Fontaine, Montreuil-Bellay and Thouars, where a bridge is already recorded as „Sancti Iacobi" in 1099. Through the Porte Saint-Jacques you enter Parthenay, the town of the man to whom tradition attributes Europe's first pilgrim guide; via the Gâtine, Niort with the Plantagenet keep and the forest of Chizé, the route ends at Availles-sur-Chizé, a day short of the Via Turonensis. To be honest: the continuous line is a routing by the associations since 1998 and 2004, not a recorded pilgrim account. But the place names were there first — Saint-James, Saint-Jacques-de-Thouars, twice „l'Hôpital" — and the way is marked in both directions: shell southwards, Mont northwards.Explore this Camino
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu529.2 kilometres, 23 stages, 4,330 metres of ascent, highest point 249 metres: the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu begins at an abbey ruin on Brittany's westernmost rock, where a lighthouse of 1835, a semaphore and a memorial to those lost at sea stand together, and runs via Brest, the abbey of Daoulas with its St James hospital of 1218, the Marian shrine of Rumengol and the only climb to 249 metres into the interior. Via Quimperlé, where the fair was moved to St James's Day in 1434, the St James chapel of Brech from 1464 and Sainte-Anne-d'Auray you reach Vannes, Redon and the towpath of the Canal de Nantes à Brest, which takes you to Nantes; the last kilometres run through the Muscadet vineyards to Clisson, where the Chemin Vendéen takes over. To be honest: the continuous route is the Association bretonne's line since 1996 — what is documented are points, 1218, 1305, 1397, 1434, 1464. But the starting point is called Finis Terrae in Latin, and the destination of all Caminos has a twin of that name.Explore this Camino
- Voie de l'Abbaye de Beauport211.0 kilometers from the monastery ruin by the sea near Paimpol right across Brittany to Saint-Jacut-les-Pins: first mudflats and salt meadows, then the Argoat of hedgerows, heaths and hamlets, finally the Canal de Nantes à Brest. Nine flat stages, hardly any pilgrims, no hostel chain — but the chapel of Merléac, whose stained glass from 1402 tells the life of the apostle, and a destination called Jacut that does not mean James.Explore this Camino
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Lorient)Half a pilgrim's day from the port city of Lorient across the Scorff and along the Blavet estuary to Hennebont: 15.8 kilometres, barely any climbing, a boat graveyard, a monk's legend and, at the end, the junction with the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu.Explore this Camino
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Pont-Croix)The variant from Pont-Croix is the short way into the southern Breton Camino: 81.5 kilometres from the church square of the Collégiale Notre-Dame de Roscudon via the sardine port of Douarnenez and the cathedral city of Quimper to Elliant, where it joins the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu. Three days, a St James harbour, a cathedral with a borrowed spire and a chapel said to have blocked the path of a plague.Explore this Camino
- Voie de LocquirecThe Voie de Locquirec is the shortest Breton opening towards Santiago: 30.2 kilometres from the church of Saint-Jacques in Locquirec via Guimaëc, Lanmeur and the Dourduff estuary to Morlaix, where the Voie de Morlaix takes over.Explore this Camino
- Voie de MoguériecA short feeder route in the north of Finistère: 35.3 km from the fishing port of Moguériec via Saint-Pol-de-Léon and Locquénolé to Morlaix, where the Voie de Morlaix sets off towards Quimperlé.Explore this Camino
- Voie de MorlaixThe Voie de Morlaix is the shared section of the two northern Breton Camino routes from Locquirec and Moguériec: 131.5 kilometres from Morlaix across Finistère and western Morbihan to Quimperlé. You cross the Monts d'Arrée at an old Hospitaller commandery, pass chapels with windows of Saint James and, in Quimperlé, join the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu.Explore this Camino
- Voie des CapitalesThe Voie des Capitales runs 197.6 kilometres from Mont-Saint-Michel through Brittany to Blain, via Antrain, Rennes and the Vilaine valley. Almost flat, lots of towpath, few crowds – and a route whose history actually runs the other way.Explore this Camino
- Voie de DinanThe Voie de Dinan is the short Breton feeder route from the kilometre zero of Dinan to the Voie des Capitales: 52.3 kilometres in three days, almost entirely on the towpath of the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance, from the old town via Léhon, Évran and Tinténiac and the eleven locks of Hédé to Saint-Médard-sur-Ille.Explore this Camino
- Voie des Capitales (Redon)The Redon variant of the Voie des Capitales: just under 20 flat kilometres along the Vilaine from the bridge near Beslé to Redon, where the Breton Ways of St James meet – with an abbey, the Quai Saint-Jacques and a TGV station.Explore this Camino
Who stands behind the routes
The Association bretonne des Amis de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, known as Compostelle Bretagne, was founded in 1996 and is based in Quimper. It describes itself as “pluraliste, indépendante et non confessionnelle” – open to everyone setting out for Santiago, whatever their reason. It is organised in five branches: Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique and Morbihan – the whole of historic Brittany.
There was no single handed-down Breton Way of St James – but there were traces: pilgrim hospitals, St James chapels and hundreds of images of the apostle. For the association, 777 sites and objects of the cult of St James were recorded in 412 municipalities. Since 1996 it has turned these points into continuous routes: eight starting points, each with its own “kilomètre zéro”, and more than 1,600 kilometres of waymarked trail, signed with the yellow shell on a blue background.
The society's routes
The network has a clear shape: all Breton routes converge on one axis, the Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu, which runs from the western tip of Brittany to Clisson. The other routes join it along the way – at Elliant, Hennebont, Quimperlé, Saint-Jacut-les-Pins, Redon or Blain. On Camino Ninja you'll find twelve routes that the association runs or co-runs.
The main axis and its variants
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu – 529.2 km from the Pointe Saint-Mathieu via Brest, Quimperlé, Vannes, Redon and Nantes to Clisson; the association publishes the southern part together with the Association Vendéenne des Pèlerins de Saint-Jacques
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Pont-Croix) – 81.5 km from its own “kilomètre zéro” at the collegiate church of Pont-Croix via Douarnenez and Quimper to Elliant
- Voie de la Pointe Saint-Mathieu (Lorient) – 15.8 km from Lorient along the Blavet to Hennebont
From the north of Brittany
- Voie de Locquirec – 30.2 km from the St James church in Locquirec to Morlaix
- Voie de Moguériec – 35.3 km from the harbour of Moguériec via Saint-Pol-de-Léon to Morlaix
- Voie de Morlaix – 131.5 km, the shared continuation of both routes across the Monts d'Arrée, Gourin and Le Faouët to Quimperlé; the association calls the whole “Voie de Locquirec & Moguériec”
- Voie de l'Abbaye de Beauport – 211.0 km from the abbey near Paimpol through the interior to Saint-Jacut-les-Pins
From Mont-Saint-Michel and Dinan
- Voie des Capitales – 197.6 km from Mont-Saint-Michel via Rennes to Blain; until 2014 it was called the “Chemin du Mont-Saint-Michel”
- Voie de Dinan – 52.3 km from Dinan along the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance to Saint-Médard-sur-Ille, where it joins the Voie des Capitales
- Voie des Capitales (Redon) – 19.9 km variant from the Vilaine bridge near Beslé to Redon
- Voie des Plantagenêts – 523.1 km from Mont-Saint-Michel via Fougères and Vitré through Anjou and Poitou to Chizé; the association publishes the guide together with the St James friends of Anjou
Beyond Brittany
- Chemin Vendéen – 235.1 km from Clisson to Saint-Jean-d'Angély, the bridge to the Via Turonensis; the association includes it as the “Liaison bretonne” in its guides, run jointly with the Association Vendéenne
The additions in brackets and the name “Voie de Morlaix” are Camino Ninja names for variants and sections; the association itself files them under its six guides.
What the society does for pilgrims
For every route the association publishes a guide as a free PDF, updated every November, plus GPS tracks and accommodation lists for each section. The heart of it is the accueils jacquaires: private hosts, often former pilgrims themselves, who take you in for a voluntary contribution. The association's rule: book at least 48 hours ahead and bring your credencial.
The association issues the credencial free of charge to its members, at the drop-in sessions (permanences) of its five branches; by post only to members living outside historic Brittany (as of October 2026). If you can't get there, bring your pilgrim passport from home. The members' magazine Ar Jakez reports on routes, gatherings and pilgrims' stories.
Contact and getting involved
All guides, maps, tracks, accommodation lists and branch dates are on compostelle-bretagne.fr (French); get in touch via the contact form there or directly through the branch for your département. An association that has woven scattered traces of St James between Finistère and the Loire into a whole network of routes – and still looks after it today.