Via Podiensis

The Via Podiensis or the Le Puy Route is one of the four routes through France on the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Great in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwest Spain. It leaves from Le-Puy-en-Velay and crosses the countryside in stages to the stele of Gibraltar in the basque village of Uhart-Mixe. Near there it merges with two of the other routes, the via Turonensis and the via Lemovicensis which merge a little earlier. The three then become the Navarre Route, passing via the French town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and crossing the Pyrenees and the Spanish border by one path or another to Roncesvalles in the Spanish province of Navarre. Together they serve as the principal pilgrimage route across Spain, known as the Camino francés. The fourth French route, the via Tolosane, crosses the Pyrenees at a different point (Somport), becomes the Aragonese Way when it enters Spain, and joins the Camino frances further to the west. Before le Puy, the via Gebennensis leaves from Geneva, gathering Swiss and German pilgrims and feeding into the via Podiensis. Though it bears a Latin name, the via Gebennensis is a modern route laid out in 1980-90, though the numerous hospitals it passes testify to the passage of pilgrims along this route in earlier ages. From Geneva to the Pyrenees, the two routes (via Gebennensis and via Podiensis) are waymarked as one of the French major hiking routes, the GR 65, with a few local variations or detours, including GR 651 through the valley of Célé and GR 652 via Rocamadour.