The village with the shortest name in Norway sits where the E10 runs out. It is a preserved fishing station, with a wood-fired bakery, an oil works and a museum to the dried cod that built Lofoten.
Å is the last stop on Lofoten's road, a cluster of red houses, wharves and drying racks under bare mountains. Much of the village is preserved as the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum.
The bakery, dating from 1844, still fires its wood oven every morning for cinnamon buns. Next door, the cod-liver-oil works shows how oil was boiled for lamps and medicine.
The Lofoten Stockfish Museum explains tørrfisk, cod air-dried on wooden racks from February to June. Most of it is still exported to Italy, where it becomes stoccafisso and baccalà dishes.
From the end of the road, a short walk leads to a view of the Moskstraumen, the tidal maelstrom that boils between the island and Værøy.
Park at the end of the road and walk back through the village.
Leave the car where the E10 ends at the tunnel mouth.
Cinnamon buns warm from the 1844 wood oven.
Walk through the boiling house, the forge and the fishermen's cabins.
Learn how cod is graded, dried and shipped south.
Walk past the last houses to watch the maelstrom off the tip of the island.
About 10 minutes south of Reine on the E10; the bus from Leknes ends here.
The museums open daily in summer and on reduced hours or by arrangement off season.
Rorbuer and a hostel in the old station let you see the village after the buses leave.
Lofoten practical notes →Photographs from Wikimedia Commons and Pexels under their licences.
