Canal Cruise, City Bus Tour, & Singel Canal Market

DAY THREE: On our last full day in Amsterdam we used our remaining tickets from the Holland Pass to take a Blue Boat Canal Cruise and Amsterdam City Bus Tour. The Canal Cruise was fantastic. The canals are what Amsterdam's all about and it provided a really neat view! I was battling with the reflection from the glass windows on the boat and it was far too cold to open the windows. So unfortunately there are only a few pictures. (I know there's a way to deal with it on manual setting on my Canon, but I haven't figured that out yet.) The City Bus Tour was just eh. RC enjoyed the history aspects from the audio tour while we drove around, but I wasn't too impressed. It was neat to see the business districts of Amsterdam, but they made a random stop at a diamond factory. We didn't know about this pit stop until we were on the bus. It was neat to see how diamonds were cut and polished, but I could have done with out this detour. 

After we finished the City Bus Tour we still had a good bit of the day left. I really wanted to see some tulips since we apparently missed the spring season at Keukenhof Gardens. So we headed over to the Singel Canal which is famous for its floating flower market. I was expecting to see fully bloomed tulips galore. It seemed that tulip bulbs and wooden or wax tulips were really the only thing for sale or displayed at these shops.  I was a little disappointed until we reached the last couple shops at the end of the canal. Finally fresh REAL tulips. I think you'll be able to tell which were real in the pictures below.

Our last stop was the iconic I AMSTERDAM sign out front the Rjiksmuseum. 

(If you don't know what I'm talking about here's a great picture- LINK.) 

We'd tried to get pictures a couple times throughout the weekend- even at different times of the day..

 But it was always pretty crowded. Here I am on the E! :) ... with 50 other people.