VOLVAER - The minute our small propeller plane stopped on the runway, a young man ran up to roll out a red carpet.
Alas, the royal treatment was not for us but for Queen Sonja of Norway, 70, who with her four-person entourage had sat in the front of the plane on the 25-minute flight from the mainland to Lofoten, an island chain above the Arctic Circle. For the queen, the flight attendants had donned white gloves and the pilot had addressed his remarks to "her majesty, ladies, and gentlemen."
Our brush with royalty was a thrilling start to what turned out to be an exciting week on this Norwegian archipelago famous for its beautiful scenery of rocky shorelines and jagged snow-capped mountains that seem to shoot out of the deep blue ocean. Famous, at least, among Europeans.
Only about 1 percent of visitors to Lofoten are American, though that's likely to grow. Last year, National Geographic Traveler magazine ranked the islands as some of the world's most unspoiled.
Once reachable only by boat, Lofoten's four main islands are now connected by tunnels and bridges and have 23,500 residents. The islands are separated from the mainland by a 100-mile fiord that, from January to April, is packed with commercial fishing boats going after spawning Nor wegian Arctic cod. The cod, which is later salted and dried, is known as stockfish.
For centuries, cod has played a huge role on Lofoten. Not only does cod remain an industry, but also the islands' quaint fishing villages and updated brick-red fishing cabins, called rorbu, attract a growing number of tourists.
Surprisingly, we found stockfish on only a few menus. Most of it is shipped to Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where it is a staple.
We did see stockfish all over on handmade wooden racks, where they hang drying for months, usually February to early June. Some racks held 50; others held 5,000 or more. Locals even decorate the outsides of their houses with them. They were an impressive if unappetizing sight.
Because Lofoten is relatively compact, only about 110 miles end to end, with striking views around almost every corner, it's a popular destination for bicyclists. It's also a magnet for tour groups traveling by bus and Europeans driving recreational vehicles. While we found that most drivers were polite, the main highway, E10, is narrow, often curvy, sometimes hilly, and has few shoulders.
We traveled in mid-June, during the time of midnight sun but before tourists swarm in July and August. Despite Lofoten hosting about 280,000 tourists a year, many of the villages remain remote and working class.
