We had booked the Small Group Highlights and History of Haugesund and Karmøy tour today through Viator and it turned out to be a very small group of just six of us, including a couple from New Zealand and Didi and Tom from California, who we had met at the Martini Bar the night before. The weather was cold and rainy as we met our guide at Viking Adventures after a short walk from the pier.

The first stop on our tour was Visnes, once Northern Europe's biggest copper plant. The copper cladding for the Statue of Liberty came from the mines at Visnes and there is a small copy of the statue on the waterfront near the old copper plant.

When you go to Norway, the last thing you think about is spending time on the beach but our driver took us next to Akrasanden, a white sandy beach that has earned eco-label Blue Flagg, an exclusive international environmental certification of beaches and marinas. The rain had let up but it was still a bit chilly.

We headed next to Ferkingstad harbor, where we were supposed to "experience Karmøy's fishing traditions" with a small crab lunch and local stories from a fisherman. But no one was there when we arrived and when our driver called, all he could say was there was a miscommunication. So we didn't even stop at the village at all. We drove on to the Fishermen's memorial, which commemorates the fishermen of Karmøy lost at sea.

Our guide arranged for us to have lunch at L3 Humler in Skudeneshavn. We enjoyed a burger made with Norwegian beef as well as seafood on toast and a delicious slice of apple pie with coffee or tea.

It was drizzling as we left lunch and wandered the town of Skudeneshavn, a town known as the 'White Lady of the Empire'. According to our tour description, we were supposed to enjoy a Norwegian-style afternoon tea at the historic Hotel Lundin where the hotel keeper would share stories about the town's history and cultural heritage. None of this happened and we just wandered around the town as nothing was open.

Our next stop was St. Olav's church, which dates back to 1250. The church was not open for us to visit but we did get to hear the story of "Virgin Mary's Sewing Needle" (Jomfru Marias Synål). The local saga warns doomsday will arrive the day the leaning stone, that leans heavily toward the building with a gap of about 3.5 inches, touches the church wall. To stop the apocalypse, medieval priests would climb the stone and chip away at the top so it wouldn't reach the wall.

Our final stop was The Rising Tide, a tidal artwork that depicts a series of working horses with riders, loosely based on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. They were originally exhibited in the River Thames within sight of the Houses of Parliament in 2015. The horse's heads have been replaced by an oil well pump. The suited figures illustrate an attitude of denial or ambivalence towards our current climate crisis and the young riders represent hope in effecting future change.

Our driver returned us directly to the ship and we went upstairs to get some food from the Mast Grill before going down to the Martini Bar for the chandelier show and then dinner at Blu.

We had seen the evening's entertainer, Gen Maldonado on a previous cruise, so we skipped her performance and decided to go to the Eden cast's performance of Caravan at the Club, which was a mistake. Our seats were under the overhang so we could not see most of the show. There were TV monitors where you could watch some of the performance but a guy decided to stand right in front of the monitor preventing anyone from seeing it except himself.

It was Motown night in the Club, so we skipped that and went back to the Martini Bar for a nightcap before bed.

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