Destination: Germany : Island Playground in the North Sea : With fairy-tale villages, crystal air and wide unspoiled beaches, Fohr has charmed Germans for centuries but is largely unknown to Americans

The Don of Canterbury himself met us at the ferry that dropped us in Wyk on the North Frisian island of Fohr.

“Welcome to Fohr,” said the Don’s companion, Chrystl Flugare, greeting us warmly. “Did you know, by the way, that there are more Fohrians in the United States today than remain here on the island?” This native imbalance was news to us. However the Don--actually a sturdy, off-white Scottish terrier--barked in vigorous corroboration, shaking himself for emphasis.

Flugare, a Hamburg hotelier and an old friend, had invited my husband Bill and me to spend a few days on Fohr (pronounced Fur ) , in the North Sea off Germany’s west coast, to experience the island’s unspoiled natural beauty and spectacular bird life, as well as its healthy, invigorating climate and unique architectural charms.

Drawn by the sea air and Fohr’s bracing breezes, Danish King Christian VIII spent his summers on the isle from 1842 to 1847, along with his 100-odd entourage. Hans Christian Andersen and Johann Strauss also whiled away the weeks at Wyk. The Waltz King’s Nordseebilder waltzes were penned in a small house on Wyk’s boardwalk in 1879, between beach hikes and cafe forays, no doubt. Today, Fohr is visited largely by Germans (many from nearby Hamburg and from Berlin) as well as neighboring Danes and the Dutch. They and others come to the island in search of a quiet, no-hassle summer and early fall vacation filled with clean air, abundant animal life and low prices in an unspoiled natural setting.

Flugare drove us through Wyk’s harbor on the island’s southeast corner, with its colorful melange of weather-beaten shrimp cutters, tidy yachts and yawls. On the deck of one vessel sat a fisherman amid long, grayish, rectangular nets overflowing with tiny pink North Sea shrimp, called krabben, the local delicacy. Plump, white and woolly sheep grazed on the inland side of the ancient 25-foot dike encircling most of the island--a descendant of the original sea wall built in 1492 after a great flood. In the distance on gentle inland slopes were dozens of gyrating electricity-generating metallic white windmills, looking for all the world like giant tai chi devotees. Our comfortable apartment was in a two-story, russet-roofed, red brick building behind a blooming screen of white beach lilies and wild roses, off the south beach.

One look at the spectacular sight from our living room windows and we congratulated ourselves on being there. Framed by tall beach pines was a wide expanse of beach interspersed with delicate turquoise rills of sea water. Beyond was the indigo blue North Sea topped with a shimmering, silvery sky dotted with clouds in perpetual motion. The sand flats or wattenmeer (literally “cotton sea”), as the Germans call it, surrounds the North Frisian isles. They are a part of Germany’s largest national park.

While the Don (“Doni” to his friends) explored sandcastles, we dug our toes deep into the inviting sand, gradually imbibing Fohr’s special atmosphere and light. The late September air we inhaled was cool, crisp, crystal clear--the stuff of which the island’s reputation as a health resort was built. In fact, Wyk--Fohr’s main village and only port--was already a kur-ort or spa and bathing resort in 1819, well before Christian VIII’s first royal visit. And there are still local kur hotels that offer something like the 19th-Century Victorian cure: a regimen of massages, mud packs, salt water inhalations and saunas.

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The beach, strewn with old-fashioned wicker beach baskets in rainbow stripes and shaded with varicolored awnings, mirrored a scene out of “Death in Venice.” We walked along the wattenmeer gathering seashells, tiny snails and other fauna. The light around us changed constantly from soft gray to pale blue to dark gray and, unexpectedly, to a luminous pinkish mauve as the clouds hastened past and the sun’s last rays blazed through. This light show, peculiar to the North Sea, infiltrated Dutch paintings such as Vermeer’s and suffuses Emil Nolde’s colorful, often careening art.

Across the narrow, flag-adorned mittelbrucke (or middle bridge) pier is Wyk’s picturesque main street. The boardwalk is separated from the beach by islands of low sea grass, elms and beach pines. Its outdoor cafes, chic boutiques and emporiums with souvenirs and clothing made of local wool are housed in low, white-gabled and balconied red brick edifices.

Flugare took us for a ride the next morning. Doni accompanied us, occasionally emitting his own, inimitable sightseeing insights.

Fohr is a roundish oval about 7 1/2 miles long by 5 miles wide, of sandy moraine and alluvial marsh. Because it lies inside the other North Frisian isles of Amrum and Sylt, closer to Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein coast, Fohr is somewhat protected from North Sea storms. From afar, Fohr’s small villages look like miniature woodlands encircling fairy-tale thatched-roof houses. Amrum’s red lighthouse and the spire of Nieblum’s St. Johannis church loom above the trees.

Nieblum is known as the prettiest village in Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein’s state. On both sides of its cobblestone main street are delightful Frisian houses of pink brick or white stone. Their overhanging, olive-tone thatched roofs are rounded, lending structures the look of awkward, plump, yet somehow endearing dumplings. The window frames and doors, painted blue, sport carvings of whales, whaling ships and an occasional windmill over an arched doorway. Entwined in the white pocket fences bracketing the homes, when we were there last September, were red and pink roses, giant dahlias and fuchsias in bloom.

The whales and nautical symbols, Flugare explained, go back to Fohr’s “Golden Age” from 1600 to 1800, when seafaring and whale-hunting were the island’s chief occupations. In 1760 there were only 64 sea captains on Fohr. A decade later, more than 150 Fohrian captains commanded Dutch, Danish and Hanseatic whaling expeditions. Setting out in late February for the Greenland region, they were joined by more than a third of Fohr’s population of 4,500. All that ended about 1800 when the Napoleonic wars and conflicts between England and Denmark effectively halted sea commerce.

Hundreds of Fohrians emigrated over the next decades (and again after both World Wars) for economic and political reasons. By the mid-19th Century, particularly after gold was discovered in California, 70% of the able-bodied men, followed by 30% of the women, left the isle. That’s why you’ll find more Fohrians overseas, especially in America, than here, Flugare said.

At Nieblum’s meeri , or pond, dozens of green-headed mallards, mottled ducks, black scoters and gaggles of bean geese and eider ducks strolled along the water’s edge, dove in or sunned themselves on the grass. The more enterprising and hungrier birds took nourishment from the hands of several giggling toddlers.

The Don barked energetically as we drove further west toward Gotting Kliff. Looking up, we saw an arc of black and white lapwings, eider and gray plover winging overhead. A 27-foot high, one-mile long promontory, Gotting Kliff was formed by the wind and water depositing stones, boulders and sand ashore, then withdrawing their bounty. From Gotting’s peak we gazed down on the wild and beautiful rock-strewn beach and the giant boulders shouldering the shore. Black-and-white Holsteins and the rarer brown-and-white Frisian cattle grazed on the marshy pastures beyond the Kliff. The other side of the road was aglow with yellow rape fields: Rape oil is used as a gasoline substitute on environmentally correct Fohr.

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The North Frisian islands extend from Denmark to the Netherlands along Europe’s west coast. Politically and culturally the islands seesawed back and forth between German and Danish influence until 1864, when the Prussian dukes of Schleswig-Holstein claimed the North Frisians for themselves. The Fohrian dialect is closer to English than to German, Danish or Dutch. The name Fohr is supposedly derived from the Frisian dialect word feer (dry land)--a dry haven, indeed, the isle must have seemed to the Vikings who wandered south down the North Sea in the 9th and 10th Centuries to settle there.

In Witsum, founded during the Middle Ages as were most of the isle’s villages, we stopped at Joe’s Smoke Barrel to buy smoked eel--another local treat. “My father, my grandfather and his father were all fishermen here,” said Joe, whose last name we never learned. “The men in the family went whaling in the 1700s. They made a good living.” Fohr’s chief industries today include dairy farming, mining of sea salt and fishing for mackerel, eel and mussels.

After lunch on Wyk’s boardwalk (scrumptious krabben soup), we rested briefly in our apartment. Our quarters included a cozy bedroom, spacious bathroom and combination living/dining room and kitchen, with the homey comforts of a VCR, dishwasher and microwave.

The next morning with Hamburg hotelier and restaurateur Helge Walter, Flugare’s longtime companion and our old friend, we were back in Nieblum at the 13th-Century St. Johannis Kirche.

In the church cemetery, among bittersweet and blooming impatiens, are more than 260 tombstones dating from the 17th to the 19th Century. Some are adorned with elaborate Baroque designs, others bear biblical illustrations. Three windmills seemingly at full tilt mark miller Hans Christiansen’s grave. Capt. Karsten Karstens (1687-1763), one of many high-ranking seamen interred there, is symbolized by a whaling ship with sails furled, indicating that he died at a ripe old age. The full sails on Capt. Peter Peterson’s tomb denote that he expired young.

From Osterland (Fohr’s eastern portion) we continued to Westerland (the isle’s western part) and paid a visit to St. Laurenti’s church, also of Romanesque origin. After admiring a glorious 15th-Century altar piece housing 12 saints, we went in search of Fohr’s most famous citizen, Matthias Petersen or Peter Matthies, born in Oldsum in 1632. Matthias captured 14 whales on a single voyage and a total of 373 before he retired--as explained on his tombstone--earning him the nickname “Matthias the Fortunate.”

Lunching outdoors at Kleines Helgoland near Wyk’s marina, we watched Elfriede, a spiffy two-masted ketch glide out of the bay as two loaded shrimpers came in. Later we walked along the footpath on the flat, narrow ridge of the ancient seawall that meanders around most of the isle.

A whale bone archway leads to Wyk’s Frisian Folklore Museum. The replica of a captain’s cabin aboard ship, in the extensive whaling exhibit, reminded us of the captain’s house in Oldsum. One imagined generations of whalers sitting and rocking in the chairs by the fire in the pesel or parlor reproduced nearby.

That evening we dined superbly at Altes Pastorat, a charming, 300-year-old former manse, now an inn and restaurant.

Later, walking on the beach, the full moon’s midnight rays illuminated our path among the sandcastles and old-fashioned wicker beach baskets. The Don emitted a great sigh . . . of contentment? Our sentiments, exactly.

GUIDEBOOK

Getting there: From LAX fly United, Lufthansa, KLM, Delta, British Airways or Northwest to Hamburg, Germany; round-trip fares start at about $1,030. From Hamburg take the train or rent a car to Dagebull a few miles south of the Danish border on Schleswig-Holstein’s coast. Fohr is a 45-minute ride on the WDR ferry: $100 per car. We left the car in a parking lot in Dagebull and paid $20 per person round trip.

Where to stay: We stayed at Ferien Wohnungen am Sudstrand im Park (vacation apartments on the South Beach in the Park). Rates range from $175 per day for two to $320 per day for six. Eulenkamp 8, 25938 Wyk/Fohr; from U.S. telephones, 011-49-4681-4152.

Witt’s Gasthof, Alkersumsteig 4, 2270 Nieblum/Fohr; charming, old-fashioned cheerful decor, just off cathedral square. Rates $110-$130 per day for two; tel. 011-49-4681-1696.

Haus Weimar, Namine Witt Wai 22, 2270 Nieblum/Fohr. Rates $70-$80 per day for two; tel. 011-49-4681-2361.

Kurhotel am Wellenbad, Sandwall 29, Postfach 1420, 2270 Wyk/Fohr; one of the spa hotels, it offers massages, mud packs, saunas. Rates $130-$145 per day for two; tel. 011-49-4681-2199.

Altes Pastorat, 2270 Suderende/Fohr; five Art Nouveau guest rooms in a 1762 thatched-roofed North Frisian house. Rates $170-$200 per person per night, including breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner; tel: 011-49-4683-226.

For more information: German National Tourist Office, 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 750, Los Angeles 90025; tel. (310) 575-9799.