page_title: Stage station
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Stage station / Early routes / Europe
context_page_description: A stage station or relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or a stage stop, is a place where an exhausted horse or horses could be replaced by fresh animals. A long journey was much faster with no delay to rest horses.
  Stage is the space between the places known as stations or stops — known to Europeans as posts or relays.
  Organised long-distance land travel became known as staging or posting. Stagecoaches, post chaises, private vehicles, individual riders and the like followed the already long-established system for messengers, couriers and letter-carriers.
  Through metonymy the name stage also came to be used for a stagecoach alone.
caption: "Le relais", by Achille Laugé, 1909, Fine arts museum of Carcassonne, France
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