The Camino de Santiago: The French Way

Paths from Paris, Vézelay and Le Puy-en-Velay all meet in this small town, and it was the pilgrims' last stop before the mountain crossing. The cobbled rue de la Citadelle runs down from the fifteenth-century Porte St-Jacques, a gate now on the UNESCO list. In 2024 more than 32,000 pilgrims set out from here towards Santiago; most come from abroad rather than France or Spain.

Visitor guidance: The Porte St-Jacques and rue de la Citadelle are in the old town; start walking from here.

The first place to rest after crossing the French Pyrenees is Roncesvalles, a village famous in history and legend for the death of Roland in 778. The church, a former pilgrim hospice, was built around 1200, and its oldest building is the Romanesque chapel known as Charlemagne's Silo. From here it is another 780 kilometres to Santiago.

Visitor guidance: The collegiate church and its chapel are in the village centre.

At Puente la Reina the Aragonese Way joins the French Way, so two streams of pilgrims become one. The town takes its name from the bridge: Queen Muniadona, wife of King Sancho III, had the six-arched Romanesque bridge built over the river Arga for pilgrims. It dates from the eleventh century and is also called the Puente Románico. Santiago is about 700 kilometres ahead.

Visitor guidance: The bridge crosses the Arga at the edge of the old town and can be walked across.

Burgos is one of the major cities on the French Way, and its cathedral rises above the old town. Its first stone was laid on 20 June 1221 in the presence of King Ferdinand III. After a long pause the spires were added in the fifteenth century by Juan de Colonia. Since 1984 it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its own right, the only Spanish cathedral listed alone.

Visitor guidance: The cathedral stands in the historic centre of Burgos.

Hospital de Órbigo has a long medieval stone bridge, recently restored, and a story to match. In 1434, a holy year with heavy pilgrim traffic, the Leonese knight Suero de Quiñones held the bridge in the name of unrequited love and challenged any knight of equal rank to joust before crossing. The tournament ran from 11 July to 9 August, and Suero claimed to have broken 300 lances. The town also grew around a pilgrim hospital founded by the Knights Hospitaller.

Visitor guidance: You can walk across the medieval bridge on the Camino.

High in the hills on the way into Galicia, O Cebreiro keeps pallozas, archaic homes; some are restored as an ethnographic museum and a pilgrim refuge. A legendary miracle of the Holy Grail made it a must for pilgrims. In 1486 the Catholic Monarchs stopped at the monastery on their own pilgrimage, and the old Romanesque monastery chalice now appears in the arms of Galicia.

Visitor guidance: The pallozas and the pilgrim refuge are in the village.

Legend says the tomb of St James was rediscovered in AD 814 by Pelagius the Hermit, and the present cathedral was begun in 1075. Inside hangs the Botafumeiro, the largest censer in the world, weighing 80 kilograms. At important services eight red-robed tiraboleiros pull its ropes until it swings almost to the roof of the transept. In 2024 about 47 percent of pilgrims who received the certificate, over 235,000 people, had taken the French Way.

Visitor guidance: Pilgrims who finish the walk can receive the pilgrim certificate in the city.