Our second full day in Amsterdam and day 4 of our trip was a cold rainy Fall day.  When we woke up and saw the weather, we immediately knew it would be perfect to do a canal cruise to see more of the city but be out of the weather.  So we headed out that morning, grabbed breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien and bought our boat tickets.  We chose the See Amsterdam canal cruise, out of pure luck walking by the ticket shop, but there are lots of companies to choose from that do the cruises.  The Amsterdam canal cruises aren’t just a great way to see more of the city, they are also a great way to escape inclement weather.  Our boat happened to be the first of the day and was almost totally empty which made it even nicer.  We spent an hour and a half riding around the canals of Amsterdam and taking it all in.  When we were done mid-day, we headed back to our hotel, packed up our stuff and checked out.  We left our bags with the hotels and grabbed a fantastic lunch at the restaurant in our hotel, Izakaya, just as a major rain storm started down pouring.  Enjoying a long leisurely lunch with amazing Japanese food (their Udon was incredible), we headed back out to explore the “I Amsterdam” sign and wander around the Museumplein area.

For our final day in the city, we then enjoyed another leisurely walk through the Jordaan, then towards the central flower market and circled back to our hotel to pick up our bags, jump on the tram and head to the train station for our Thalys train to Brussels.  Overall, Amsterdam was a place I know we’ll be back to many times.  It’s such a lovely, thriving city that you can wander for hours and never get tired of it!

Tips for Amsterdam
-Use the trams as transportation if you don’t want to walk, they are cheap and easy.  Just pay the driver when you get on.
-Lots of hotel have bikes to rent if you want, had the weather been better we probably would have done it, so take advantage!
-Stay out of the way of bikers when you’re walking in Amsterdam, there are bikes and bikers everywhere so be aware of your surroundings and don’t block the bike lanes.