Prince Charles, Camilla return from US trip

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall have bid farewell to the US after an eight-day official tour. The couple travelled up the red carpet to board their Boeing 757 plane, decorated with the Prince's Royal Standard, in San Francisco.

They posed for pictures with San Francisco Police department riders. Earlier, they visited the Empress Hotel Homelessness Project for San Francisco where Camilla, wearing a tweed suit, was presented with flowers.

As they left the project, Camilla said she had had a "fantastic" trip. She admitted she had been nervous about her first official overseas engagement. "A bit at first but I got used to it - there was such a warm welcome here," she told reporters.

The prince said his wife had done "brilliantly". The people they had met in an earlier brief stop in hurricane-hit New Orleans faced "an enormous challenge", he said.

The couple's tour of the US also included visits to Ground Zero in New York. And in San Francisco they also toured the farmers' market, watched the popular Beach Blanket Babylon musical and sampled organic delights as they visited an "edible school yard", reports BBC news. I.L.