Guide · Schiphol · 2026-10-15
Hotels along the Haarlemmerstraat, a walk west from Centraal
Turn west out of Centraal and a long, lively shopping street leads toward an old city gate. The hotels along it are small and friendly, close enough to the station to walk with a bag, and well placed for the northern Jordaan.
The Haarlemmerstraat and its continuation, the Haarlemmerdijk, follow the line of the old dike that carried the road to Haarlem out of the city. Today they make one long street of delicatessens, bakeries, design shops and cafés, ending at a stone gateway on the Haarlemmerplein. To the south lie the Brouwersgracht and the northern Jordaan; to the north the Western Islands, a quiet pocket of old warehouses and wooden drawbridges.
What the hotels are like
Most hotels here are small, occupying the upper floors of houses with a shop or café at street level. A few are a little larger, with a breakfast room and a desk staffed in the evening. Rooms are modest in size and often have character, and the stairs can be steep. A narrow street door squeezed between two shopfronts is common, so tell the thread exactly which door belongs to the hotel and whether a code opens it.
From the airport
This is one of the few clusters in the centre where walking from the train with a suitcase is genuinely practical. From the western side of Centraal the street begins almost at once, and most hotels are a short, flat walk along it. A taxi can drive the street slowly, but bicycles and delivery vans make it easier to be dropped at one end.
Evenings on a shopping street
The shops close in the early evening and the street takes on a different rhythm, with the cafés and small restaurants filling up and then emptying at a reasonable hour. It is lively without being loud. Rooms at the front hear the bicycles; rooms at the back look onto gardens. For a session that starts in the evening, either works.
A first walk before the session
From the hotel, a loop through the Western Islands, along the Brouwersgracht and back through the northern Jordaan makes an easy first walk, with nothing to queue for and plenty to look at. Write as you set off, mention that it is your first booking, and the reply will propose a start. The booking page shows the order of the messages, and the glossary entry on the thread explains what it holds.