Camino

Camino de Santiago routes in France and the French Basque Country: Ostabat, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and the coastal route

How the French Camino routes from Le Puy, Vézelay and Tours meet at Ostabat and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and the coastal route via Bayonne and Hendaye.

By Eztebe3 min

For pilgrims coming from France, the French Basque Country (Iparralde) is a crossroads: this is where the great routes meet before crossing the Pyrenees. Here’s how the routes fit together.

Four great historic routes

In the 12th century, the Pilgrim’s Guide describes four main routes across France:

  • the Tours route (which starts from Paris),
  • the Vézelay route,
  • the Le Puy route (Via Podiensis, followed today by the GR 65),
  • the Arles route.

The first three meet in the French Basque Country; the Arles route, on the other hand, crosses the Pyrenees at the Somport pass and only joins the others at Puente la Reina, in Navarre.

World Heritage status

In 1998, UNESCO inscribed the ‘Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France’: 71 monuments and 7 sections of footpath (about 160 km of the Le Puy route). In the French Basque Country and Béarn, they include the St James’s Gate (Porte Saint-Jacques) in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (Donibane Garazi), the church at L’Hôpital-Saint-Blaise and the Church of Sainte-Marie in Oloron.

The Lower Navarre crossroads

Gibraltar and the stele of the routes

Near Saint-Palais (Donapaleu), at a spot called Gibraltar (Xibaltarre, in the municipality of Uhart-Mixe), a disc-shaped stele marks the meeting of the Tours, Vézelay and Le Puy routes. Brought from the cemetery at Sorhapuru, it was unveiled on 2 August 1964, in the presence of the mayor of Santiago de Compostela, on the initiative of the Friends of the Way of St James (Amis du chemin de Saint-Jacques), founded by the historian Clément Urrutibéhéty.

Ostabat, the old staging post

Ostabat is where the three routes converge. In the 13th century the village became a very busy stopover: around 1350 it had some twenty inns, two hospitals, three churches and two priory-hospitals. The decline of pilgrimage after the 18th century stripped it of that role; the last priory-hospitals disappeared in 1784.

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, gateway to the Pyrenees

About twenty kilometres from Ostabat, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is the main starting point of the Camino Francés. The number of pilgrims it welcomes has risen from 3,000 in 1992 to more than 61,000 in 2019. The pilgrim office (39 rue de la Citadelle) issues the pilgrim passport (credencial) and the town’s stamp. From there, it’s on to Roncesvalles, via the Napoleon Route or via Valcarlos.

The coastal route via Bayonne and Hendaye

There is also a coastal route, known as the Soulac route or the ‘way of the English’ (voie des Anglais): British pilgrims landed at Soulac, then followed the Atlantic coast. It crosses the Landes, then runs through Bayonne (Baiona), Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Donibane Lohizune) and Hendaye (Hendaia) as far as Irun. From there you can follow the Camino del Norte along the coast, or join the Camino Francés by other routes, such as the Baztan route.

Further reading

Sources

Buen Camino!

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