We had to be out of our rooms by 9am but the boat was happy to store our bags until our pickup at 3pm for our flight to Frankfurt and the Auckland via Singapore.

It was a nice day and warmer so we were happy to walk across the road into town and walk through the market and then down the pedestrian shopping precinct.

The market is in a large building that looks like a railway station. There are mainly food and spice shops on the ground with souvenirs and clothes upstairs.

It was worth a visit but we weren’t in a position to be buying much.

The main shopping area was excellent with a huge range, prices getting higher the further you go away from the markets. They don’t have Euros in Hungary but do accept them with an unattractive exchange rate for the local forint. Most stores accepted credit cards anyway.

We had coffee at a cafe in the main street and returned there later for lunch. I was happy to down some local goulash soup with heaps of paprika. Evidently Hungarians consume on average several kilos of paprika per person per annum compared to the international average of 100-200g! That’s a bit appetite for paprika.

Mike got some nice new shoes and Brenda and I got some bits and pieces. I got a leather backpack for Jen in one of the trendy shops that lined the street. They gave me a tax invoice so I could claim the tax at the airport also.

After lunch we had a walk along the waterfront and it was actually quite hot.

Then back to the boat where we could use the bathroom and people watch the new passengers who were all arriving. We marvelled at the sheer size of some of the newbies. I don’t know how some will fit in their en-suites. There was also a new cruise director as Bram was off to get married so has 3 weeks leave. Some of the staff were new but others were the same and Niki the barmaid got us a free beer as part of the lunch availability, even though it was 2.30!

Our private ride was arranged by the boat and arrived on time. Our driver was excellent if a little unorthodox. There were some accidents and roadworks on the motorway so he took us along this maze of secondary routes, (including through the forecourt of the bus terminal at one point) to get us around the obstacles and to the airport in time. Pretty reasonable for @€30.

The tax refund people at the airport were unbelievably efficient ( Melbourne airport staff should go there and learn) as was the passage through customs and immigration. We got booked right through to Auckland and had time for a coffee before we had to board. It was only 11/2 hours to Frankfurt but they still managed to serve us a sandwich thing and a drink. All very efficient except that we were nearly 40 minutes late departing because the plane was late arriving from Frankfurt where some idiot taking photos with a drone had managed to close the airport down for 2 hours. Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty of time to catch your Singapore connection they said at check in.

Well Frankfurt was chaotic. Just about every flight had a changed gate and we had to get off and into buses to get to the terminal. Brenda was at the front and got off first but thinking we were at the back and had already got off, she set off in the waiting bus. We were instead in the middle and some of the last to get off so got in a different bus. At the terminal none of the screens were showing our Singapore flight so we set off to the gate that the checkin lady had hand written on our boarding passes. That was in a different part of the terminal and when arrived there was indeed a Singapore code share flight with Lufthansa boarding. At this point Brenda texted to say she was on her way somewhere else and we realised this was not the gate for our flight. We headed back and then were diverted to buses that took us somewhere else. Everywhere there were people running in all directions. It was chaos. We eventually arrived at the correct gate where an anxious Brenda was refusing to board without us. As it turned out they waited another 15 minutes as other people continued to arrive. Many of the people from the boat were also on board and all agreed it was an extremely stressful start to the rerun home!

Fortunately the rest of the trip went well. While Mike and I were in the back row to Singapore, and thus there was no room to recline your seat, we had the front row from Singapore to Auckland and it was extremely comfortable.

We had the fastest ever disembarkation in Auckland and were at the car within 30 minutes of landing and the drive back was fine. All in all we were glad to be home but thoroughly enjoyed our holiday in Amsterdam and our cruise down the Rhine. Time to start planning for the next one!