Partner
Friends of the Way of St. James in Poland
The supra-regional association of St James pilgrims in Poland: since 2009, from Wrocław, it has researched, waymarked and looked after the Polish Ways of St James, issues pilgrim passports and Camino certificates and informs pilgrims.
The Caminos on the map
Caminos of this partner
Via Regia PolskaThe Via Regia Polska runs 935.0 kilometers from Medyka on the Ukrainian border to Görlitz on the Neisse, following the medieval King's Highway, first recorded as "strata regia" in a charter of 1252. Along the way lie Przemyśl, Rzeszów, Tarnów, Kraków, the pilgrimage hills of Piekary and St. Anne's Mountain, Opole, Wrocław and Legnica. It was waymarked from west to east, starting on the Neisse in 2006 and ending in the Carpathian foothills. About 41 stages, ↗ 7,445 meters, highest point 474 meters on the Kraków Jura north of Ojców.Explore this Camino- Camino SudeckaThe Camino Sudecka takes you 114.3 kilometers from the Lubań three-way junction through the Jizera Mountains foothills and the Bóbr Gorge on the edge of the Karkonosze Mountains up to Chełmsko Śląskie — passing the world’s only medieval Lancelot murals still hanging in their original locations and Poland’s oldest image of the Virgin Mary at Krzeszów Abbey. It is the only Polish Way of St. James that heads south: Three kilometers past the destination, it connects with the East Bohemian Way of St. James at the Czech border—and according to the Kłodzko County, about twenty people walk it each year.Explore this Camino
- Camino Podlaska471 kilometres of flat eastern Poland: from the Camaldolese monastery of Wigry on one of the clearest lakes in the country via the Augustów Canal and the Biebrza marshes, through the brick-church villages of Podlasie and the Bug valley to the heart of Warsaw. 19 stages, 93 metres of height difference, three St. James churches, little infrastructure — and places where you walk more slowly. Poland's easternmost and loneliest Way of St. James, explicitly still under construction.Explore this Camino
- Camino Warszawska382 kilometres from Warsaw's archcathedral to the Black Madonna of Jasna Góra: 16 stages through the Masovian lowlands, the Pilica valley and the foothills of the Kraków-Częstochowa Jura. Not a landscape trail but a chain — shrine follows shrine, from Ożarów via Niepokalanów, Miedniewice and Święta Anna to the hill of forgiveness before Częstochowa. Plus the Romanesque St. Giles church of Inowłódz, a Cistercian abbey of 1176 and the best rail access of all Polish Ways of St. James.Explore this Camino
- Camino Częstochowska102.9 kilometres between the two greatest pilgrimage sites of Upper Silesia: start at the Black Madonna of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, finish at the St. Anne sanctuary on Góra Świętej Anny. In between, almost nothing but forest and field tracks, forty kilometres without a shop, a silver medallion found on a manure cart in 1716, a Cistercian abbey — and at the finish the direct connection to the Via Regia towards Wrocław and Görlitz.Explore this Camino
- Camino Raciborska114.8 kilometres, 6 stages, 494 metres of ascent, highest point 314 metres: the Camino Raciborska branches off the Via Regia at Zimna Wódka near Ujazd, heads through pine forests to the Oder, follows it over floodplain forest, dykes and rapeseed fields to Łubowice, where Joseph von Eichendorff was born, reaches Racibórz with its Piast castle, Becket chapel and St James church, crosses the loess plateau via Pietrowice Wielkie and the weavers' town of Kietrz to the second St James church in Nasiedle, and crosses the Opava river at Wiechowice into the Czech Republic — seven kilometres later you stand beneath the 102-metre tower of Opava's co-cathedral. Opened on 20 July 2019 by the Opole club Peregrini Opolienses. Frankly: no hostel network, a 31-kilometre opening stage with no bed along the way, plenty of hard surface — but beneath the market square of Racibórz lay a 13th-century pilgrim shell, one of only eight known from the whole of Poland, and the border you cross is younger than the route: from 1337 to 1521 Racibórz and Opava were one duchy.Explore this Camino
- Camino Lubuska283.7 kilometres in twelve stages from Murowana Goślina near Poznań to the Oder at Frankfurt: a flat, wooded two-week Camino through Greater Poland and the Lubusz lakeland, born as a German-Polish project. Two St. James churches, a Marian image that a king personally brought back in 1671, an abbey demolished down to its foundations — and at the end the only bridge over which a Polish Way of St. James leads into Germany.Explore this Camino
- Camino Jasnogórska69.2 kilometres, three days, three St. James churches: from the Black Madonna of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa to the basilica of Piekary Śląskie, the second great Marian shrine of Upper Silesia. Flat, wooded, along the watershed between the Oder and the Vistula — and at kilometre 56 in Sączów, where certified relics of the apostle have lain since 1779, directly connected to the Via Regia.Explore this Camino
Who stands behind the route
The Stowarzyszenie „Przyjaciele Dróg św. Jakuba w Polsce“ – known internationally as Friends of the Way of St. James in Poland – was founded in Wrocław on 25 September 2009. It brings together pilgrims, friends of the Camino and everyone who revives, organises, describes and promotes the Ways of St James in Poland. The association is regarded as the originator of the Polish Ways of St James; it is a member of Camino Europe and, since 2012, of the network of the Council of Europe's VIA REGIA cultural route.
Waymarking in Poland began in 2004, and one of the first routes ran from Jakubów to Zgorzelec on the German border. Today the association counts more than two dozen routes with over 6,000 kilometres under the scallop shell. Many of them come about together with regional partners – confraternities, pilgrim clubs, parishes and regional associations – who look after their section on the ground.
The association's routes
- Via Regia Polska – 935.0 km from Medyka on the Ukrainian border right across southern Poland to Zgorzelec and over the Neisse to Görlitz
- Camino Lubuska – 283.7 km from St James' Church in Murowana Goślina near Poznań to the Oder at Słubice and Frankfurt (Oder)
- Camino Sudecka – 114.3 km from Lubań to Chełmsko Śląskie, the historic core of the Sudetes route
- Camino Częstochowska – 102.9 km from the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa to St Anne's Mountain (Góra Świętej Anny)
- Camino Jasnogórska – 69.2 km from Jasna Góra to the basilica of Piekary Śląskie
- Camino Raciborska – 114.8 km from Zimna Wódka via Racibórz to Opava in the Czech Republic; looked after locally by the Opole club Peregrini Opolienses
- Camino Warszawska – 382.0 km from Warsaw's Archcathedral to Jasna Góra in Częstochowa
- Camino Podlaska – 471.0 km from Wigry monastery to Warsaw, together with the St James Confraternity at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army
What the association does for pilgrims
Volunteers waymark the routes with the yellow scallop shell on a blue background and yellow arrows; variants carry a white shell. The association keeps the GPS tracks up to date and maintains a database of accommodation along the way. The Polish pilgrim passport (Paszport Pielgrzyma) and literature about the Way are available from the association's online shop, the Sklep Pielgrzyma; anyone who walks at least 100 kilometres on Polish routes can receive a Camino certificate – also in junior and family versions.
Through the Opiekun Drogi programme, volunteers adopt a section of the route: they waymark it, look after pilgrims or make their section known. There are regional contacts for Opole, Upper Silesia, Upper Lusatia around Lubań, Lublin, Greater Poland and Warsaw, among others.
Contact and getting involved
Website: camino.net.pl (in Polish) with all routes, stages, accommodation and news · Email: info@camino.net.pl. You can get involved as a member, as a route guardian or with waymarking.