A pilgrim route in Norway

OUR HIKE BEGAN with a jolt of adrenaline: Within the very first hour, as we headily sampled wild blueberries and raspberries, a pair of fit Norwegians zoomed past us downhill on their bicycles, narrowly avoiding us on the thin forest path.

- MARTA GIACCONE

We hadn't heard them coming; the woods had absorbed the sound of their approach. Though we didn't know it at the time, the two cyclists would be some of the only people we'd encounter in the next nine days. My partner and I were just outside Tynset, a small town some 160 miles due north of Oslo — just south of where Norway thins and extends all the way to the Arctic Circle and, then, further east, touches Russia. Earlier in the day we'd begun our 125-mile hike along part of the Osterdalsleden, or Eastern Valley Trail, a pilgrimage route that leads north to the city of Trondheim. The Osterdalsleden is one of nine paths known collectively as the St Olav Ways, a network of pilgrimage routes that converges on Trondheim's Nidaros Cathedral — the burial site of Olav Haraldsson, the canonised Viking king who helped Christianise Norway.

In time, these historical pilgrim paths to Nidaros became the main transportation routes between Oslo and Trondheim. But the commercial traffic now makes use of highways and railroads, allowing pilgrims and hikers to walk the trails in peace, an example of genuinely sustainable slow tourism. With an average rate of around 14 miles a day, we didn't have to walk overly quickly — though the altitude gain of around 13,000 feet overall worked to slow us down.