Walking the Kongevegen, the old road over Filefjell

Before the Kongevegen, crossing between Oslo and Bergen meant a packhorse trail and a good deal of luck. The road built over Filefjell in the 1790s changed that: it was the first route a cart could take between the two halves of the country, and it was engineered to French principles of the period - straight where the ground allowed, drained, and laid on a foundation that has held for two centuries. Long stretches of it survive, and this week walks them.

The walking is short and the days are unhurried: 12.5 km, 11 km, 5 km and 14 km, with the highest point at 1,247 metres. What fills the time is what the road runs past. Borgund Stave Church, standing in the Laerdal valley since around 1180. The Vindhella section, where the road doubles back on itself in tight cobbled switchbacks down a wall of rock. The Galdane gorge, described in its own day as the most dangerous stretch of the whole crossing, where German defensive works from the last war still sit in the scree.

Five nights in two places rather than five, which is unusual for a route walk and makes the week feel less like a march: three at Filefjellstuene on the mountain and two at the Husum Hotel down in Laerdal. Transport runs you to the start of each stage and picks you up at the end, so the walking days stay short by design rather than by cutting them off. Bags move once, on day four. A Norwegian operator runs it self-guided, with a coach from Oslo or Bergen at each end and an app carrying the maps and route options.