Pilgrimage from monastery to monastery 370 kilometers across Upper Austria

Pilgrimages are the trend of the time. The classic is the Way of St. James, to which Hape Kerkeling’s bestseller, among others, commemorated. Around 150,000 people hike in the footsteps of the Apostle James to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain every year. The Benedict pilgrimage route now follows in the footsteps of the famous example.

“It is a way of meeting and moving in many ways: with culture, art, monasteries, nature, people,” says Kurt Rumplmayr. The 59-year-old religion teacher from Wels is the chairman of the “Benedikt be-Weg-t Oberösterreich” association, which was founded in 2019. In May, the approximately 370-kilometer-long footpath and cycle path, which leads from Passau to Spital am Pyhrn in Upper Austria, was completed after years of effort. On August 25, it will be opened and blessed in the Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster by diocesan bishop Manfred Scheuer and Abbot Ambros.

“This path wants to connect me and everyone who walks it with God, with each other and with myself,” explains Rumplmayr. It took around ten years to realize the Upper Austrian section of the Benedict pilgrimage route, which should be around 4,000 kilometers long when it is completed: In the footsteps of St. Benedict from “Monastery to monastery through Europe”, from the Montecassino Abbey in central Italy, the mother monastery of the Benedictine order and grave of St. Benedict, via his birthplace Nursia in Umbria to Pluscarden in Scotland, the northernmost Benedictine monastery in Europe. “But that will take a very long time.” Around 1100 kilometers have already been completed, i.e. just over a quarter.

The construction of the pilgrimage route was not easy in Upper Austria either. Approvals, regulations and discussions with all the landowners involved were extremely difficult, despite being included as an EU leader project, “sometimes to the limit of what is bearable”. The joy is all the greater now.

A total of 42 stages, 34 of which are on foot and eight for cyclists, are available to pilgrims in Upper Austria. Numerous signs, information boards and QR codes make pilgrimage easier.

Incidentally, the “Benedict Origin Trail” has been leading from Spital am Pyhrn to St. Paul im Lavanttal since 2009 and has been extended to Gornji Grad in Slovenia. The Benediktweg has already been ranked among the top ten pilgrimage routes worldwide by the GEO magazine.

Benedict pilgrimage route

• 370 kilometers: This is the length of the foot pilgrimage route from Passau to Spital/Pyhrn, which is marked throughout in both directions, as well as the Benedict pilgrimage route in the Traunviertel. The variant for cycling pilgrims is five kilometers shorter. Information about the route at: www.benedikt-bewegt.at
• 1950 hours: For that long, the 50 members of the association have worked voluntarily and on a voluntary basis. Among other things, they installed around 1,600 information signs.
• 53 pilgrim stamps in different colors and motifs for monasteries, stage locations and central locations are waiting along the pilgrimage route.
• 18 panorama boards are set up at central stage locations, mainly monasteries, provided with QR codes.
• 122,000 euros were the provisional total costs for the 42 stages (foot and bike).