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Friday, 30^th August

For our last day in Nice/France/Europe we planned to visit the Marc Chagall Museum. We walked there, it was about 20 minutes from the hotel, but we were just a little wary – would it be open? Other Museums we had looked forward to seeing were closed (Picasso in Paris, twice). But we were in luck, it was open! It is situated in a lovely leafy part of Nice, and we walked past some very beautiful apartment blocks, houses, mansions and an enormous building, The Majestic, we presume is a hotel. There are many Belle Epoque, Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings in Nice- it has some very attractive spots.

The Marc Chagall Museum houses a collection of his works. At present the temporary exhibition was his Self Portraits. There is a permanent exhibition of his Old Testament stories, about 15 very large paintings depicting stories about Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Noah and The Song of Songs. There is a beautiful mosaic above a large pond outside, and an auditorium with three stained glass windows, again depicting The Creation. The gallery was interesting and purpose built to house his work. The building is light, airy and modern, with free audio guides, a café in the shady gardens and a good gift shop. I feel we have been spoiled a bit by the Alfons Mucha Slav Epic in Prague, which had an enormous visual, cultural and emotional impact on both of us. While the Chagall works were interesting, we were not blown away!

We walked back to the hotel, collected our luggage and were picked up for our airport transfer. The flight from Nice to Dubai was made interesting, as we flew along the coast to Italy, across Italy to Ancona, and then over Split. We had a chance to revisit (35000 feet above) several of the places we visited on the ground.

We landed in Dubai and had to take a train from one terminal to the other. When we landed at one terminal, we looked around and thought that it looked different. Could they have rearranged all the duty free in the six weeks we’ve been away? Well, no, we were in a different building.

We stocked up on some supplies, and are waiting to board for the long leg home.

And what a long leg it became.

There was a stop in Kuala Lumpur for almost two hours, while they cleaned the plane and refuelled. So we got off the plane, went into the terminal, went through a baggage check, and sat around until we could get back onto the SAME plane, in the same seats and waited on the tarmac for another hour. It was too windy to take off on a northerly runway and we had to wait for a southerly runway to become available. 

We had a bit more waiting, because as we approached the eastern side of Australia, there wasn’t enough fuel to get to Melbourne. So we diverted to Adelaide, and waited for another hour or so. We finally got into Melbourne at 3:30 and into a taxi by 4ish and home at about 4:30.

We think we have been awake for about 45 hours. We try to work it out, but with so many different time zones and that we have been awake for nearly two days, it's not making much sense and what does it matter? We’re home.

Thank you to all of you who have followed our travels. We have had a fantastic time away, and have loved sharing our reflections with you. We hope you have had some fun reading the Blog, VerweysEurope2013.