Amsterdam's going-out districts and a late booking, district by district

The arrival window does not change from one district to the next. Wherever you are staying in central Amsterdam, a therapist reaches a confirmed address forty to sixty minutes after the booking is agreed. What changes from one part of the city to the next is everything on your side of that window: how late the evening runs, how easy it is to leave, how you will get back and how long that takes. This page takes the neighbourhoods visitors actually spend their evenings in and works out what each one means for the moment you write.

One principle runs through all of them. The visit happens in your room and in no other place. The districts below are where your evening happens, never where she is met, and she never joins any part of it. Every plan here ends with you back through your own door first.

Leidseplein

The square at the south-western edge of the canal ring is where the city goes to be loud. Theatres, a concert venue, a long row of bars and a stretch of late kitchens sit within a couple of minutes of one another, and the crowd changes in waves: diners at eight, audiences at half past ten, the bar crowd from eleven into the small hours. On a Friday or Saturday the square is busy until late, and the side streets hold the noise longer than the square itself.

For a booking, Leidseplein has two strengths. It is close to a great deal of the hotel stock, with the canal ring, the museum quarter and Oud-Zuid all within fifteen to twenty minutes on foot. And the trams through it run often until a little after midnight. Its weakness is the exit. Leaving a busy bar on the square takes longer than anyone expects, and taxis around it at closing are slow to come by. Choose a leaving minute before the second drink, write from the street rather than from inside, and plan the walk rather than the ride. The page on drinks at the two squares goes further into the timing.

Rembrandtplein

A few minutes east, across the canal ring, the second going-out square is smaller and in some ways more concentrated. Clubs, late bars and cafe terraces ring a small park, and the streets running off it towards the Amstel and the old centre stay busy into the early hours at weekends. It draws a slightly later crowd than Leidseplein and holds it longer.

It sits very close to the centre, so a room near Dam Square, in the canal ring or towards the Plantage is often a walk of ten minutes or less. That short distance is useful and slightly dangerous, because it makes it tempting to write at the last moment. Do not. Ten minutes of walking still needs forty minutes of window behind it, so the message goes out while you still have a drink in front of you. Guests leaving a club here after one or two in the morning should read the page for the hour after a club, because what the reply asks at that hour is slightly different.

The Jordaan

West of the main canals, the Jordaan does its evenings more quietly: small restaurants, wine bars, old brown cafes on corners, and streets that go calm well before the squares do. A dinner here tends to be long and unhurried, and the tables are often booked for a single sitting, which means nobody hurries you out.

That is the planning difficulty. A Jordaan dinner has no natural end, so name one. Decide at the main course when you will leave, and write then with a named hour. From the Jordaan, rooms in the canal ring and around Dam Square are ten to twenty minutes on foot through quiet streets, and the walk is a pleasant one. Trams run along the edge of the district rather than through it, so walking is usually quicker anyway. The after-dinner page sets out why the message should leave the restaurant before you do.

De Pijp

South of the canal ring, De Pijp is where a lot of visitors eat: a dense grid of restaurants of every kind, a busy market street by day, and bars that fill steadily from nine and stay lively until one or two. It feels close to the centre and is not quite as close as it feels.

From De Pijp, a room in Oud-Zuid or around the museum quarter is ten to fifteen minutes on foot. A room near Dam Square or on the far side of the old centre is closer to half an hour. The north-south metro line runs under the district and is quick until it stops for the night; after that, it is a walk or a taxi. Guests staying in the centre should plan a De Pijp evening as a thirty minute journey and write accordingly. Guests at Zuidas, further south, face a similar distance in the other direction and should do the same.

The old centre and the streets around Nieuwmarkt

The oldest part of the city, from the station down through the narrow streets around the canals and Nieuwmarkt, is busy almost around the clock at weekends, with a crowd that is heavier on visitors than anywhere else. Plenty of guests stay here, which makes the walk back the shortest of any district on this page, often five minutes or less.

Two things matter more here than distance. The streets are crowded and slow to move through in the late evening, so a five minute walk can take fifteen. And the buildings in this part of the city are old, narrow and often entered by a steep stair or a door that locks early. Tell the thread how the entrance works in your first message, and check it yourself on the way in.

The museum quarter and a concert-hall evening

South of Leidseplein, the area around the large museums and the concert hall does its evenings formally. Performances start at a fixed hour and end at a printed time, the audiences leave together, and the streets around the square go quiet very quickly afterwards. The hotels in Oud-Zuid and along the edge of the Vondelpark are a short walk away.

This is the easiest district on the page to plan for, because the end of the evening is written on the ticket. Add twenty minutes to the printed end for the applause, the aisle and the cloakroom, add the walk, add ten minutes in the room, and confirm forty minutes before that. The interval is the natural moment to write. The page about a theatre or concert evening covers the foyer and the timing in more detail.

Zuidas

The business district in the south of the city is quiet in the evening and hardly a going-out destination, but a number of visitors stay there and go out elsewhere. For them, the journey home is the long part. From Leidseplein or De Pijp, Zuidas is twenty to thirty minutes by taxi or night bus once the metro has stopped, and rather longer on foot. Plan the booking on that basis, and remember that the address you give is the one she reaches: if you are staying at Zuidas, write the Zuidas address, not the district where the evening is happening.

Rooms outside the ring

A few guests stay beyond these districts, in Oost near the park, in West near the old harbour streets, or across the water in Noord. The window is the same for any central address, but the walk from a going-out square is longer, and after midnight the ferries and night buses run less often. Treat the journey home as forty minutes unless you know better, and write the full address, floor and door code in the first message.

What does not change from district to district

The figures do not change. An hour for one guest is 180 euros, ninety minutes 270, two hours 360, three hours 540, and the eight-hour overnight 1,250, with nothing added for a late start, a weekend or her journey inside the city. The couple and two-therapist figures are on every profile on the roster.

The deposit rule does not change either. Half the fee goes ahead on a first booking, on anything arranged more than twenty-four hours ahead, on an overnight, on two therapists, on a Schiphol or airport hotel room, on a peak date and on any session of three hours or more. A returning guest asking for one or two hours later the same day at a central address pays everything on arrival.

And the address does not change. Whatever district the evening happens in, the booking is for your own room, and she comes there and nowhere else. Rooms at a Schiphol airport hotel are possible by arrangement, with the length of her journey there agreed with you before anything is fixed.

A rough table of walks

These are walking times at an evening pace, rounded up, from each district to the three places guests usually sleep. Night buses and taxis can beat them, and often do not.

• Leidseplein: canal ring ten to fifteen minutes, Dam Square twenty, Oud-Zuid fifteen.
• Rembrandtplein: canal ring five to ten minutes, Dam Square ten to fifteen, Oud-Zuid twenty-five.
• The Jordaan: canal ring ten minutes, Dam Square fifteen, Oud-Zuid twenty-five to thirty.
• De Pijp: canal ring twenty minutes, Dam Square thirty, Oud-Zuid ten to fifteen.
• The old centre: canal ring ten minutes, Dam Square five, Oud-Zuid thirty.

Whichever line applies, add ten minutes for leaving the building, ten more for the room, and write forty minutes before the total. The guide to timing a booking around a night out works through the same arithmetic minute by minute.