Rooms and doors of Red Light District
The city has spent recent years trying to calm the quarter. Guided tours that paused in front of the windows were banned, closing times for windows and bars were pulled earlier, and smoking cannabis on these streets is no longer allowed. The result is a district with two personalities in a single night: dense, loud and slow-moving on the bridges until the early hours, then almost deserted, the canals left to delivery bikes and street cleaners. Accommodation is small and full of character. There are narrow hotels above ground-floor bars on Warmoesstraat, canal houses split into a few rooms along both Burgwallen, hostels that are unsuitable for any private visit, and one or two grand properties with proper lobbies. A visitor staying in De Wallen has usually chosen it for the atmosphere, then discovered that what he wants at the end of the evening is the one thing the district does not sell on its streets: calm.











