Fredrikstad Old Town

Gamlebyen was founded in 1567 after the older town upstream was burned, and it was laid out as a fortress town with bastioned earth ramparts, wet moats, gates and a grid of streets inside, completed through the seventeenth century. Around three hundred people still live within the walls, and the buildings, mostly eighteenth and nineteenth-century timber and brick, hold shops, workshops, galleries, cafes and a small garrison museum, so it functions as a district rather than a monument. It is generally described as the best-preserved fortified town in northern Europe. A free passenger ferry crosses the Glomma from the modern centre every few minutes, and the surrounding outer forts, including Kongsten, can be walked to.

What you actually see

• The earth ramparts - bastioned walls and wet moats around the town.
• The street grid - a seventeenth-century plan still in daily use.
• The timber and brick houses - eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings.
• Kongsten fort - an outlying fortification a short walk away.

When to go

May to September, when the shops, cafes and museums are open and the ramparts are green; the free ferry runs year-round. Summer weekends and events fill the narrow streets.

Honest expectations

This is a working residential district, so many buildings are private homes. Some shops and museums keep short seasonal hours. The old town is small and walked in a couple of hours.

Nearby

Kongsten fort is outside the walls; Hvaler islands and Sarpsborg lie south and east.