Hotels on the old harbour islands of the Eastern Docklands

The islands were built out into the IJ around the turn of the twentieth century for the shipping lines that sailed to the far side of the world. When the ships moved to deeper harbours west of the city, the warehouses emptied, and from the late nineteen-eighties the piers were rebuilt as housing. The result is a district of experimental architecture: low rows of narrow houses on Borneo and Sporenburg, joined by a red footbridge that curves over the water like a snake, and large apartment blocks on the KNSM and Java islands.

Where the hotels are

Most of the hotels stand along the Piet Heinkade, the stretch between the station and the islands, beside the concert halls for new music and jazz and the terminal where cruise ships tie up. Further out, a lodging house built for emigrants waiting for their ship has become a hotel with rooms of very different sizes, and a few apartment hotels sit among the housing on the islands themselves. Rooms are modern almost everywhere, with lifts and the large windows that a harbour view invites.

From the airport

The airport train to Centraal and a tram east along the waterfront is the usual route, and the tram stops close to the hotels on the Piet Heinkade. Some guests walk it from the station with a light bag, since the quay is flat and wide. A taxi from the airport reaches every hotel here without trouble, as the district was laid out with proper roads and room to stop. Write from the train, with the hotel's name and the island if you are staying out on one.

Still water at night

Once the concert halls let out, the quays turn very quiet. There are no bar streets, the housing is residential and the water soaks up most sound. A room here suits a long session with the curtains open onto the dark harbour, or drawn if the window faces another block across the dock. She will knock forty to sixty minutes after the start is confirmed, and the lobby, usually staffed through the night, is where the evening begins if the lifts need a card.

Before a sailing, or after a concert

Guests stay out here for two reasons above all: a cruise that leaves from the terminal on the waterfront, or an evening at one of the halls beside it. For the first, a session on the night before boarding is easy to place, as long as the morning's check-in time is in the thread. For the second, write as you leave the hall, and the walk back along the quay fills most of the wait. The couples page explains how two travellers can share the hour, and the entry on the booking thread covers what that thread should hold.