The Walking Pilgrim

Modern Routes - Route Details

Camino Navarro/Chemin Navarrais
Ostabat, St Jean Pied de Port, Roncesvalles, Pamplona, Puente la Reina

Route map

Highest point: Col Lepoeder 1440m
The Liber Sancti Jacobi (LSJ) claimed that the routes from Tours, Le Puy, and Limoges merged at Ostabat, near St-Palais. Two further routes, the Chemin de Piémont and the route from Bayonne, join further along. Together they cross the Pyrenees via what LSJ called the Portus Cisere (or Portus Cisereus) - the Port de Cise or Cize - and what is now marked on maps as the Col de Bentarte/Lepoeder, descending to the monastery at Roncesvalles, and continuing via Pamplona (where the Baztan route joins) to the junction with the Camino Aragonés at Puente la Reina. This is where the Camino Francés proper starts, though the term is often used to include part of this route.
Although historically the Tours route will have been the most important of the constituent routes, because the GR65 was the first to be created, it is its marking that continues from Ostabat to the Spanish border and beyond. The yellow arrows of Spain start at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
For much of the Middle Ages, Navarre owned not only the section south of the Pyrenees but also that to the north, still called Basse Navarre.

Confraternity of St James produces English: guide | factsheet

Detailed mapping for sections (compare with list above):

  • Ostabat-Puente la Reina
kmcumul kmview on map
Ostabat-Col Lepoeder45.5045.50
French border-Lepoeder-Roncesvalles7.8553.35
Roncesvalles-Puente la Reina64.80118.15
vFrench border-Valcarlos-Roncesvalles16.1116.11
vdetour to Eunate2.4618.57
Section overviewAll sectionsIndividual section (select above) *
IGN (France) view view view
IGN (Spain) view view view
OpenStreetMapview view view
Bing mapsview view view
Google maps**view view view

- opens in separate tab/window
- viewing all sections may take long time to load on slow lines and/or machines
- OpenStreetMap/Bing/Google cover all countries; national topo maps only sections in that country
- * display of individual section does not work in popup on route overview page
- ** initial load of Google maps takes longer

Id: navarro