Rain and the Walk Back Along the Canals

Visitors learn quickly that the weather in this city does not keep to the forecast. A clear evening at seven can be a steady drizzle by ten, and a shower that looks brief from a restaurant window can still be going at midnight. For a booking made on the way back, the rain does not change the arrival window or the figures. It changes the walk, and the walk is the part of the plan that is yours.

Slower, and less pleasant

Rain adds minutes to a walk in ways people underestimate. The pavements along the canals are narrow, cobbled in places and slippery when wet. The bridges are steeper than they look. Umbrellas meet other umbrellas in the narrow streets. A fifteen minute walk in dry weather can easily become twenty-five in a downpour, especially if you stop under an awning to wait for it to ease.

So plan for the wet version. If rain is falling or forecast when you write, add ten minutes to the journey home, or name an hour a little later than you otherwise would. If it turns out to be dry, the spare time goes on a longer shower.

The taxi problem, again

Rain is also the moment when everyone else decides to take a taxi. Ranks that had cars waiting at nine are empty at eleven, ride apps show long waits, and the queue at the busy squares grows quickly. Do not plan on a taxi appearing in the rain. If you want one, book it through an app before you leave, and walk towards your hotel while you wait for it.

Trams are a better option before midnight, and they tend to be crowded with other people escaping the weather. After midnight, night buses run less often and the stops are exposed. On balance, a walk in a proper coat remains the way home you can actually time.

Arriving wet

A guest who walks back through rain arrives cold, even if he does not feel it. Hands and feet in particular take a while to warm up. The first job in the room is a hot shower, before anything else. The second is the heating, turned up a few degrees above where you would normally keep it. A cold room with a cold guest in it makes the first twenty minutes of any massage less comfortable than it needs to be.

Hang the wet coat and any damp clothes in the bathroom or over a chair near the heater, not on the bed or the one armchair in the room. Put shoes somewhere they will not be tripped over. It takes a minute and it clears the space for the next hour.

Her side of the weather

She travels through the same rain. The arrival window of forty to sixty minutes from confirmation already takes account of an ordinary wet night, and it does not change with the forecast. But it is a courtesy, on a wet evening, to be in the room and ready when she arrives, so that she is not left standing at a street door in the rain waiting for a reply. If the building needs you to come down to let her in, go down as soon as she says she is close.

When the weather really turns

Once or twice a year, the city has a night of genuine storm: high winds, trams stopped, a warning from the authorities to stay indoors. If something like that makes her journey impossible, it is outside either side's control, nothing is forfeited, and any deposit becomes credit for a later date. An ordinary rainy night is not that, however wet it feels. A booking on a rainy evening is treated exactly like any other.

A small upside

Rain empties the streets. The walk back along the canals on a wet night, with the water loud on the umbrella and the reflections of the bridges broken up on the surface, is one of the quieter pleasures the city has, and it arrives at the room in a very different frame of mind from a walk through a crowded square on a dry Saturday. Plenty of guests remember the walk more fondly than the dinner.

The guide to the going-out districts has a rough table of walking times from each one, and the booking page covers the first message.