Hotels near the Westerkerk, where the canal ring meets the Jordaan

The Westerkerk was built in the early seventeenth century, and its tower, topped with an imperial crown, is the landmark visitors use to find their way around the western canal ring. On the Prinsengracht beside it stands the house where Anne Frank hid during the war, now a museum with timed tickets and a queue that winds along the canal for much of the day. Across the water the Jordaan begins, a district of narrower streets and smaller houses.

The hotels near the tower

This cluster is made up of canal-house hotels on the Prinsengracht and the Keizersgracht, a few larger places on the Raadhuisstraat and the Rozengracht, and smaller rooms on the side streets of the Jordaan. The canal houses have steep stairs and individual rooms; the larger hotels on the main roads have lifts and night desks. Either suits a session, as long as the thread knows which kind you are in.

From the airport

A tram from Centraal stops at the Westermarkt, right by the church, and that is the easy way in with luggage. From the airport a taxi to the door is quicker if you are tired, though the canal quays are narrow. If a delivery van blocks the quay, ask the driver to stop at the Westermarkt and walk the last stretch beside the water. With a timed museum ticket on your first day, a morning arrival and a session in the late afternoon fit neatly around it.

Quiet evenings after the queue

Once the museum closes, the Prinsengracht by the church becomes a calm stretch of houseboats and parked bicycles. The cafés of the Jordaan stay open, but their noise rarely reaches the canal-side rooms. Send the message as the plates are cleared at dinner, and the forty to sixty minutes will have run by the time you are back upstairs.

Choosing a format for a canal-house room

Rooms in the canal houses here are often long and narrow, with the bed between the window and the door. That works for most formats, and body-to-body massage needs no more than a bed and a warm room. The roster shows who is free, along with the languages each therapist speaks, which helps if English is not your first language either.