Walking the Via Turonensis from Paris to Chartres
Walking the Via Turonensis from Paris to Chartres
by David Ryan | Albuquerque, NM
Near the end of October 2024, I flew to Paris to walk along the Via Turonensis from Paris to Chartres in France. The Via Turonesis is one of the four major Camino routes across France that, if you follow them to the end, will eventually reach Santiago de Compostela.
My walk allowed me to scratch two serious itches. First, I had long wanted to visit La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres. Second, I wanted to make another Camino but didn’t have the time for a longer walk, so a 70-mile trek to Chartres Cathedral satisfied the need.
The walk from Paris to Chartres did not feel like a typical Camino experience. It was a solitary experience. In fact, I did not see or meet another pilgrim the entire way. There were other walkers, runners, cyclists, and dogs at various times, but they were all in local activity. None were doing a Camino.
Because there are not many pilgrims, there is not the same infrastructure that you find in Spain or on more-frequented Camino routes. Many of the places recommended for lodging and provisions in the Miam Miam Dodo guidebook were as much as a mile or more off the route.
The Via Turonensis starts at Tour Saint-Jacques in the heart of Paris, just on the north side of the Seine River. This is the surviving tower of a cathedral that once stood at the location.
From the tower, the Camino route crossed the Seine and passed Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris on Rue Saint Jacques before proceeding through the Sorbonne University area and past many spectacular buildings, including the Panthéon. This stretch of the route even had Camino medallions pointing the way to Santiago de Compostela embedded in the sidewalk. The sidewalk medallions soon petered out, though, and route finding became a bit more problematic.
When Rue Saint Jacques ended, the route continued through the streets of Paris and its suburbs until it reached La Coulée Verte, a very long and wonderful linear park. Near the south end of La Coulée Verte, the Via Turonesis split into two branches—one going to Orléans and the one I wanted going to Chartres.
It is here where you really have to pay attention to the route markings. The Via Turonesis follows the GR655 hiking route. France has a huge network of GR routes that sometimes overlap each other, so there is a chance of ending up on the wrong route.
The GR655 takes great advantage of existing creases and corridors to provide an interesting, pretty, and peaceful walking experience as it leads you through the outer reaches of Paris and into wide-open countryside. Beyond La Coulée Verte, the route reached a forest. Eventually, the route left the woods and passed the Abbaye Saint-Louis-du-Temple, where you can spend the night and attend services with the Sisters.
From the abbey, the route gets very creative. You’ll follow paths through farm fields, walk along farm roads, and take a combination of bike paths, forest trails, and canal paths as you head toward the town of Chevreuse. Since you’ll be passing through a university area within commuting distance of Paris, you may encounter students, runners, and others walking their dogs.
From Chevreuse, the route climbed to a castle high up on a ridge and then back down. The GR655 eventually worked its way to Rambouillet with its enormous chateau and incredible grounds.
As I got closer to Chartres, most of the surface rocks were large chunks of chert, a hard flint good for making stone tools. I found myself constantly wiping silky threads from cocoons or webs off my hat and face. They were literally floating in the air.
As I reached a farm field perched on a bit of an uplift, I noticed two small specks on the southwest horizon. They were the towers of La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres. The excitement and elation I felt was like when I saw Mount Katahdin for the first time when I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. You’ve now seen the goal, so let’s get there!
Editor’s note: For a more expansive piece on the Via Turonensis from Paris to Chartes, check out the author’s blog.
