Haarlem

Today we packed up and left our bed and no breakfast and walked to the bike hire place in town. We shuffled things around in our bags and then set off on our new Dutch touring bikes - which compared with our bikes was like cycling a tank. We had a little fun navigating in town but were soon out of the city on our way to Haarlem.

We were a few kilometres out of the town when we hit a snag - the cycle way was closed and the sign (in Dutch) didn't provide a detour. My Garmin suggested an alternative which we ignored but it turned out that it made the only sane suggestion as there was no viable way to cross the canal without going back several kilometres - which was a bit a annoying but carrying on was a detour of dozens of kilometres!

Much cursing later we were back on our way to Haarlem via Zaandam which was not too bad. The navigation wasn't too bad and the weather was nice. The bikes have only one speed which is slow - going down hill they don't pick any speed up and the slightest incline they grind to a halt. Rolling along the flat is a constant push, which is very boring and tedious.

We eventually arrived in Haarlem and quickly located our new Bed and no Breakfast, and were able to put the bikes away and have enough time to explore town and get dinner from the supermarket.

We found the centre of town and in front of the main church there was a square with statue it, and filling the whole square was a fun fair and a lot of jolly people. One of the extras is the church without a fairground ride in shot and the second is a canal - like Amsterdam Haarlem is built on water and canals are every where - though as extreme as Amsterdam 

Haarlem is very pretty and it feels like Amsterdam, but it's cleaner and doesn't smell bad. The Bed and no Breakfast is small but well formed and this one has a fridge, TV and plenty of WiFi.