It's a marathon

Not a sprint...

Today's goals were ambitious: find our way to the park we wanted to cycle in (yesterday's amusing and potentially marriage-wrecking tale of not finding the park is trapped in my Nikon), do a canal cruise and go to the Science Museum.

After a breakfast of pancakes in the airport (our nearest train station) we headed into town and (thanks to some elegant and accurate map reading) found our way quickly to the bike hire place. There was some kind of hoohah around the entrance to the park and, just as we started to cycle I realised it was the lead bunch in the Amsterdam Marathon arriving. Obviously a great thing to see, though it did take away half of the cycle circuit! Still, we were quite happy just to cycle up and down the remaining park road, with some off road action led by Mr B. We felt quite lucky to have our first ever family cycle ride in the home of bikes.

Once the bikes were back, a canal cruise was leaving straight away nearby. It was diverting, rather than brilliant.

On then with more fantastic map-reading (turns out the key is to actually look at the map and the street signs...) to the Science Museum but, with only an hour before closing time, 54 euros felt a bit steep so we tried the Maritime Museum, which had a similarly early closing time. Nothing for it then but to head (with care not to stumble into the wrong kind of 'joint') for tea and cake.

Suitably replenished with calories we headed home to swim (TallGirl finally learned how to swim underwater without holding her nose).

Out then for dinner at a motorway service station, which I know sounds a bit rubbish, but they have a great restaurant where everyone can get the food they want: Thai stir fry, pizza, sea bass and Italian Burger (we're a bit suspicious about what the last one means but didn't like to discuss it in front of pony-mad TallGirl. Not that she would have minded: she had post-pool giggles and couldn't get over the hilarity of my describing a plum as plumplicious).

Though it was a shame not to see the museums, we have many more days and.... the holiday is a marathon, not a sprint.