Guide · Schiphol · 2026-10-15
Hotels around Leidseplein, for a first visit that runs late
Leidseplein is where many visitors spend their first night out, and the hotels around it make the walk home a short one. The square is loud until late, which is the one thing to plan around when a session is booked to the room.
The square takes its name from the old road to Leiden, which once left the city through a gate here. Today it is a broad, busy space of theatre steps, café terraces and tram stops, with the city theatre on one side and two well-known live-music halls a short walk away. Hotels surround it: large ones on the square and on the Stadhouderskade facing the outer canal, smaller ones on the Leidsegracht, the Lijnbaansgracht and the streets in between.
From the airport
An express bus from the airport stops near the square, which suits a guest whose hotel is close by and who would rather not change at Centraal with luggage. The train and then a tram from Centraal is the other way in, and a taxi from the airport is straightforward outside the busy hours. Have the hotel's street ready, since the square itself is given over mostly to trams.
Front rooms and side canals
A room facing the square hears it until the clubs close, and at weekends that is very late. The hotels a block away on the Leidsegracht or the Lijnbaansgracht are a different world, with canal water outside the window and little more than footsteps after midnight. If you have a choice, a room on a side canal is the gentler setting for a session. If you do not, heavy curtains and music in the room do most of the work.
Booking after a night out
Many guests here book late, after dinner or a show. The sensible order is to write before leaving the bar, not once you are back in the room, so the forty to sixty minutes run while you walk. Be honest with yourself about how the evening has gone: a guest who is plainly drunk is one of the reasons a visit ends early, as the terms say, and a session is better enjoyed with a clear head anyway.
Night desks and visitors
Hotels around the square are used to guests coming and going at all hours, and most keep a desk staffed through the night. A visitor walking in late attracts no attention at all. For hotels with key-card lifts, come down to the lobby when she writes that she is outside. The hotel that said Amsterdam is a reminder to check that your booking really is near the square and not out by the runways.