Things to do
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Galleri Lofoten
A two-floor gallery in Henningsvær holding one of the largest collections of North Norwegian painting from the Lofoten golden age of about 1870 to 1930, with work by Gunnar Berg, Otto Sinding, Adelsteen Normann and Even Ulving downstairs and contemporary art above. It traded as Galleri Lofotens Hus until new owners renamed it in 2019.
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Henningsvær
Park on the edge and walk in; the lanes are single track with nowhere to turn, and the point of the place is the harbour, the galleries and the pitch out on the bare rocks.
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Norwegian Fishing Village Museum
An open-air museum at Å, the village at the end of the E10, made from more than a dozen protected buildings of a working fishing station: the boathouses, the smithy, the rorbuer, a bakery of 1844 that still bakes, and one of the oldest cod liver oil works in Europe. The exhibits explain how the station system organised the cod season for two centuries.
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Nusfjord
The village charges to walk in, which is exactly why it stays quiet; an hour covers the quay, the cod liver oil shed and the old store, and arriving on foot from Nesland costs nothing.
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Reine
The village itself takes half an hour on foot; the view everyone comes for is from the Hamnøy bridge just north on the E10, and it holds up best in the long evening light.
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Unstad
A bay on the north coast of Vestvågøy with a right-hand point break that works through the winter, home to one of the world's northernmost surf schools and to the Lofoten Masters competition each autumn. Water temperature sits a few degrees above freezing, so everything is done in thick hooded wetsuits.
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Haukland Beach
A wide arc of white sand and green shallow water ten minutes west of Leknes, repeatedly named among Norway's best beaches and one of the few in Lofoten that people actually swim at. A short road tunnel and a coastal footpath over Mannen link it to Uttakleiv next door.
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Kvalvika Beach
A pale crescent of sand on the exposed north-west coast of Moskenesøya with no road to it, reached by an hour of walking over a boggy pass from the car park at Fredvang. There is nothing built on it, which is the point, and the surf comes in unbroken off open Atlantic water.
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Lofoten Stockfish Museum
A working fish landing station rather than a display case, and the smell is part of the exhibit; half an hour covers the racks and the packing floor, and the summer guided round is what makes it land.
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Lofotr Viking Museum
A museum at Borg built around the largest Viking building ever found, an 83 metre chieftain's longhouse uncovered in 1983 when a farmer's plough turned up the site. A full-scale reconstruction stands beside the excavation with a fire down its length, and the grounds run to a reconstructed ship, a smithy and living-history staff.
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Reinebringen
A stone staircase rather than a walk, and it closes without much warning after rockfall; start early, read the notice at the foot, and leave the car in Reine because there is no parking at the trailhead.
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Ryten
A 543 metre summit above Kvalvika, usually climbed as the second half of the same walk, with a broad flat top and a cantilevered slab of rock that hangs over the drop to the beach. The gradient is gentler than Reinebringen and the view takes in the whole north-west shoreline.
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Trollfjord
A two kilometre inlet off Raftsundet whose entrance narrows to about a hundred metres between walls that climb well over a thousand, so close that boats turn on the spot at the head of it. It is reached only by water, on sightseeing RIBs and larger boats out of Svolvær, and sea eagles are the usual accompaniment. The fjord gave its name to the Battle of Trollfjord in 1890, when steam trawlers blockaded the entrance against the open boats.
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Uttakleiv Beach
A rockier, wilder bay on the far side of the headland from Haukland, facing north across open sea, which makes it the standard place in Lofoten to watch the midnight sun and the aurora. Photographers come for the boulder field and the heart-shaped rock pool at the north end.
