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7.35am – Well, the weather has finally turned. It’s cloudy this morning and quite a bit chillier. The four tender boats are already deployed ready to take everyone ashore to our final destination – Skjolden (pronounced Shoal-den apparently).

We’re off to breakfast shortly before our 8.30am disembarkation.

9.50am – Well, what a difference a day makes…

Just beyond the tender landing pier we caught a bus to take us up Sognefjell mountain. At the top of the mountain it is snowing very heavily and the visibility is not great. Another impressive twisty mountain road has brought us to about 1500 ft above sea level.

Despite the adverse conditions, Helen and feel quite inspired to see what the weather can really be like here and how quickly it can change with altitude. There are snowdrifts at the side of the road which are several feet deep in places. Down in the valley when we set off it was drizzling, but as we climbed ever higher it soon turned to heavy snow above the tree line.

Today’s guide is finally a Norwegian! After an Italian guide in Bergen and then a Spanish lady yesterday in Flam, it was nice to feel a local connection coming through in the Norwegian man’s commentary. That said, the poor chap had a hard time trying to enthuse about the beauty of the landscape around us when we couldn’t see much of it for ourselves today!

One of the highlights of our tour up the mountain was to pass the house of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Although it was difficult to see the house itself amongst the trees, we stopped briefly at the end of the road leading to his log cabin where there were information boards about the great man himself.

As we returned to Skjolden we saw a reconstruction of one of Saga’s earliest cruise ships, as you can see below.

11.33am – I’ve come back onboard ship now, leaving Helen to venture farther into Skjolden to see what she can find. She’s a hardy soul!

11.46am – I’ve come to The Living Room where I’m enjoying a lovely cup of coffee and a small crab-meat and caviar open sandwich snack-ette affair. It’s such a hard life on-board a cruise ship!

11.52am – I’ve just come up to Deck 12 to the fabulous Britannia Lounge where the plentiful sofas are very comfortable. I’m taking this opportunity to keep the blog up-to-date.

1.25pm – I’ve just been watching Helen’s tender coming back to the ship.

2.35pm – We’ve just had lunch and are going to go up to The Britannia Lounge to settle-down for the afternoon to read our books.

Helen has just pointed out to me how much the weather has improved this afternoon. The sun is now almost out and it has warmed-up a lot. We’re just speculating about whether the top of the mountain we went up earlier is now clearer. Quite honestly, we were very happy with it as it was – very raw and authentic, and feel that anyone going up there this afternoon in sunshine is missing-out on the rather magical experience we had.

6.17pm – After a couple of hours reading (and dozing), whilst lounging on a ridiculously comfortable sofa in The Britannia Lounge, Helen and I decided to try the Lido Pool and hot tubs when this evening’s performers came to do rehearsals and sound checks in the lounge.

We did a dozen or so lengths of the (10m?) pool before trying the hot tub. We got some funny looks from people walking by who thought we were being very brave, but it was perfectly fine until we climbed out and then felt the chill!

Unfortunately, we’re underway again now – straight to Dover, arriving after breakfast on Saturday. Boo hoo – it’s going far too quickly!

9.43pm – We had a beautiful dinner in The Grand Dining Room this evening. Helen and I both had the Surf and Turf main course and it was excellent.

We tried to get into The Playhouse Theatre for tonight’s show but it was totally packed when we arrived just as it was starting. However, although it’s not quite the same, all the evening entertainment events are live-streamed to the huge flat-screen TVs in the cabins which is a handy feature. There is also an enormous selection of on-demand videos available too. Saga really have thought of just about everything.