Our last day - 25 October

Our flight home was scheduled for 3.30pm, so we set out early to spend the morning at the Rijks Museum. We took a tram and arrived 30 minutes before the 9am opening time. There was already a short queue but we went straight in when it opened.

The main building has only recently been reopened after a massive renovation and it is a wonderful fusion of old an new. The 19th century shell of the building and features such as the stained glass windows have been retained, but the display areas are crisp and modern.

We started on the third floor with the period 1900 - 1950, where the highlights were a beautifully restored 1920s aircraft and some Art Nouveau furniture.

On the second floor (1600 - 1650) we saw some amazing dolls houses. It was the fashion for wealthy women at that time to create them as a hobby by buying or commissioning everyday items to scale for the dolls.

We also saw a lovely baby's cradle crafted in ivory and ebony which was made in Asia for staff of the Dutch East India Company.

That floor was also where the major 17th century art works are found, in particular paintings by Rembrandt. His painting 'Night Watch' was one of the highlights.

On the first floor (1700 - 1800) there was an interesting longcase clock which had a mechanism with moving ships and a painted view of Rotterdam above the clock face.

We could have seen a lot more on that floor but unfortunately, in looking for the way to the wing of galleries on the other side, we accidentally exited the museum. To get back in I would have had to cloak my backpack (which had been missed by the guards when we first entered) and by now the cloakroom queue was huge. We needed to leave the apartment by 12pm so we decided it was time to return then.

As we left the museum we were surprised by the size of the crowds in the entrance area and the length of the ticket and other queues.

A small section of the crowd in the entrance area

Back at the apartment we finished packing and said goodbye to our landlords Harry and Tomoko. We caught the train to Schipol airport and eventually boarded our A380 airbus for the flight to Dubai. It seems that every airport is different and Schipol is the first one we have been to where you go through the security scanners at each departure lounge - which explained why boarding started at 2pm for our 3.30pm flight!

We had a three hour break at Dubai then flew to Kuala Lumpur (with a 90 minute break, when we visited the jungle in the middlle of the airport, for a breath of steamy, fresh air) and onto Melbourne, arriving around 1.30am.

A glimpse of the jungle at KL airport -
enclosed by glass and open to the air

We took the Skybus to the city and then, the most challenging part of the trip home, we managed to get a taxi which we shared with three others who were going on to Malvern and St Kilda, arriving home a bit after 3am.

So ended another wonderful overseas adventure. Thanks to Ian's careful planning, we stayed in some very interesting places and saw all the sights we had been looking forward to. We had lots of fun, met some challenging situations (ranging from tackling a strange washing machine without instructions to driving in Liverpool in peak hour), renewed some friendships and now have another store of wonderful memories - and of course 1,900 more photos!

Thanks to all those who have sent me feedback about the blog. I have enjoyed producing it and I hope it helped us to keep in touch with family and friends as we travelled. Hopefully it will continue in 2015 when we hope to be 'on the road' again.