Routes Santiago de Compostela - Via Tolosana in Bearn

Reference : FR082

POSTCARD AVAILABLE FOR TRADE
Size : 10 x 15 cm

"Les chemins de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle :
la voie d'Arles en Béarn (via Tolosana), Morlaàs,
La Commande, Oloron, Sarrance, Lescar, Borce"

The Way of St. James or St. James' Way (Spanish : El Camino de Santiago, French : Chemin de St-Jacques) is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried.

The Way of St. James is said to have originated in France, where it is called Le Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostelle. This is the reason that the Spanish themselves refer to the Way of St. James as "the French road", since most of the pilgrims they saw were French. The origin of the pilgrimage is most often cited as the Codex Calixtinus, which is decidedly a French document. Though in the Codex everyone was called upon to join the pilgrimage, there were four main starting points in the Cathedral cities of Tours, Vézelay, Le Puy-en-Velay and Arles. They are today all routes of the Grande Randonnée network.

The Arles Way

The route from Italy, the Via Tolosana, becomes the Arles Way (French : La voie d'Arles or Chemin d'Arles) in southern France, named after that principal cathedral city. It goes through Montpellier, Toulouse and Oloron-Sainte-Marie, in Bearn pronvince, before reaching the Spanish border at Col du Somport in the high Pyrenees. There it connects to the Aragonese Way, and as such is the only French route not to connect to the Camino Francés at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

Sites of Bearn province on the Arles Way :

• Morlaàs
• La Commande
• Oloron
• Sarrance
• Lescar
• Borce
  

UNESCO w.h.s. :
Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France

Date of inscription : 1998

Santiago de Compostela was the supreme goal for countless thousands of pious pilgrims who converged there from all over Europe throughout the Middle Ages. To reach Spain pilgrims had to pass through France, and the group of important historical monuments included in this inscription marks out the four routes by which they did so.