The Via Dolorosa: 14 Stations, 600 Metres, and Two Very Different Ways to Walk It

Two ways to walk it, and both are right

Way one: walk it alone at 6 At the. The Old City is quiet. The shopkeepers are still setting up their stalls. The stones are cool. You will miss half the stations because the signage is minimal and several stations are inside chapels that are locked at dawn. But the ones you do find, you will find alone. There is a particular quality to standing at a station with no one behind you and no one ahead of you, reading the small Roman numeral set into the wall, and having the moment be entirely yours. For some pilgrims that solitude is the whole point.

Way two: Friday at 3 PM with the Franciscan procession. Hundreds of pilgrims, hymns in multiple languages, the route is led by Franciscan friars carrying a wooden cross. You will not miss a single station. You will also not be alone for one second of it. The procession has walked this route every Friday for centuries, and being carried along by it is a different kind of experience entirely: less private, more communal, and impossible to get lost on because the crowd is the map.

Neither way is the correct way. If you have two mornings, do both, in either order. If you have one, choose the one that matches why you came.

The stations to know

Station I is at the Praetorium, where Pilate condemns Jesus. This is your starting point, on the site of the Antonia Fortress near the Lions' Gate end of the Old City, and it is where both the only walk and the Friday procession begin.

Station V marks the spot where Simon of Cyrene is compelled to help carry the cross. It is marked by a handprint worn into the wall, a hollow in the stone that pilgrims have touched for so long that it has taken the shape of a hand. You can put your own hand into it. Most people do.

Station VIII is where Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem. It is marked by a Latin cross carved into the wall of a monastery, easy to walk past because it sits above shoulder height on a stretch of the route that has narrowed into an alley. Look up, and slightly back, or you will miss it.

The mistake almost everyone makes at the end

Station XIV is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The final five stations are inside the church. This catches people out. They finish the street, take photos, and leave, not realising the last five stations are through the doorway to their right.

Stations X through XIV cover the crucifixion, the death, the removal from the cross, and the burial, and they are all under the roof of the Holy Sepulchre. The church is dim, crowded, and divided among several Christian denominations, so it does not look or feel like the street you have just walked. But it is where the Via Dolorosa actually ends. When you reach what feels like the end of the outdoor route, do not stop. Go through the door on your right, let your eyes adjust, and finish.

Practical notes

Wear shoes you have broken in. The Via Dolorosa is on polished stone that has been walked smooth by 2,000 years of pilgrims' feet. It is slippery when wet. After rain, or early in the morning when the stones are still damp, the surface can be genuinely treacherous on the sloped sections. Flat, grippy soles matter more here than they do on almost any other walk you will do in the city.

Go early or go with the procession, but try not to go in the middle of a hot afternoon on your own, when the crowds are thickest and the shade is thinnest. Carry water. Dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered, because you will be entering churches and chapels where it is expected. And give yourself more time than the 600 metres suggests: at a real pilgrim's pace, stopping at each station, the walk takes far longer than the distance implies.

The route is short. The experience is not. Walk it slowly, whichever way you choose, and do not leave before you have gone through that last doorway.