Picked by our team
Towns worth discovering along the Camino de Santiago, chosen by our team. Open one to see its history and sights, and where to stay.
15 towns on the Sächsischer Jakobsweg
View on the mapArnsdorf is the quiet evening before Dresden: a village between fields and forest, with a church from 1638 and a hospital with a heavy history. In 1940/41 at least 2,681 patients were taken from here to Pirna-Sonnenstein. The pilgrim bed waits 4.5 kilometres further on in Wallroda, and it is 26.8 kilometres to Dresden.
Sächsischer JakobswegBautzen is the town that shares: in St Peter's Cathedral Catholics and Protestants have prayed under one roof since 1524, the signs show German and Sorbian side by side, and at the Hammermühle the Saxon Way of St James parts from the Via Regia. Ahead of you lie 307.7 kilometres to Hof. A rest day before setting off is worth it.
Via Regia DESächsischer JakobswegBischofswerda is a town that was rebuilt after a single evening: on 12 May 1813 it burned down to all but three houses, and afterwards it rose again in neoclassical style on the old layout. Your first stage ends here, 25.5 kilometres beyond Bautzen. An afternoon is enough for the Altmarkt and the Christuskirche.
Sächsischer JakobswegChemnitz is the halfway point of the Saxon Way of St James: shortly before the city you have half of the 308 kilometres from Bautzen to Hof behind you. The stage ends at the Jakobikirche, the city's mother church, destroyed in 1945, its nave not finished again until 2009. An afternoon is enough for the church, the Marx head and the remains of the old town.
Sächsischer JakobswegDresden is the city of reconciliation on the Saxon Way of St James: the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), which collapsed in 1945 and was reconsecrated in 2005, prays the Litany of Reconciliation from Coventry. As early as 1455 the city had a hostel for strangers with a St James altar, on the road to Freiberg. After 68.7 kilometres from Bautzen, the city is worth a rest day.
Sächsischer JakobswegFreiberg is the silver town on the Saxon Way of St James: around 1168 a silver find in a forest village made it the richest town in the Margraviate of Meissen. The silver is still there today in the cathedral with its Golden Portal and in four Silbermann organs, one of them in the Jakobikirche. After that it is only 15.5 kilometres to Oederan.
Sächsischer JakobswegGrillenburg lies in the middle of the Tharandter Wald, and according to legend a Saxon elector chased away his "Grillen" (gloomy moods) here while hunting. Try it yourself: ponds, a hunting lodge on an island, a pilgrim hostel by the water. The palace is a building site until 2029, the forest is not. Freiberg is 18.9 kilometres away.
Sächsischer JakobswegGrumbach is the first deep breath after Dresden: an old forest-hide village near Wilsdruff, 18.6 kilometres beyond the big city. Above you in the village church hangs a picture Bible of originally 96 ceiling panels, and next door the Haus der Stille (House of Silence) in the parsonage invites you to be quiet. This is where the variant from Königsbrück joins.
Sächsischer JakobswegKönigsbrück - GrumbachHof is the place of handover: the Saxon Way of St James ends here after 307.9 kilometres at the Lorenzkirche, and the Upper Franconian Way of St James to Nuremberg begins. You sleep in a former Poor Clares' convent and eat sausages from the Wärschtlamo in the town where the trains from Prague arrived in 1989.
Sächsischer JakobswegOberfränkischer Jakobsweg (Hof - Bayreuth - Nürnberg)+1Top rated
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