Rooms and doors of Dam Square
A front-page square attracts front-page hotels. The grand properties facing the Dam and lining Damrak rank among the largest in the city, with night managers, doormen and keycard lifts; around them, on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, Rokin and the lanes toward Spui, stand boutique conversions and chain hotels inside historic shells. Whatever the category, these hotels are used to traffic that never stops: tourists at noon, pickpocket warnings at dusk, and at night a steady stream of guests returning from dinner in the old centre and from the bars of De Wallen just behind the palace. That constant movement is the discretion. A woman crossing the Dam at midnight in a dark coat is indistinguishable from the thousand other people who crossed it that hour. Inside the hotels the lift is the only variable: she messages from the lobby, and the rest depends on how your building handles its keys.

