Guide · Amsterdam · 2026-10-15
Body to body in the Jordaan on a frosty Amsterdam night, in a canal house room
The Jordaan is the Amsterdam visitors picture first: narrow canal houses leaning slightly forward, bicycles chained to every railing, and on a clear winter night frost along the edges of the Prinsengracht and the Brouwersgracht. It is also among the colder places to stay in January, and a body to body booking there runs more smoothly with the building in mind.
What a Jordaan room is like in the cold
Many rooms in the Jordaan sit in converted canal houses, in small hotels or in flats above shops. The buildings are old and narrow, often single glazed on the canal side, with floors laid over unheated stairwells. The radiators are small for the size of the windows, and on a frosty night the room by the window and the room by the stairs can feel like different seasons.
Upper floors have sloping ceilings under the roof, and the building's warmth collects up there while the ground and first floors stay cooler. If you have a choice of room in winter, higher is usually warmer.
Getting there: doors, bells and stairs
Jordaan addresses are easy to find on a map and harder to find in the dark. House numbers can be small and painted on the door frame, and one street door may serve several flats behind a row of bells. Write the exact bell, the floor and anything odd about the door in the thread.
The stairs are the famous part. Steep, narrow and sometimes nearer a ladder than a staircase, they are simply a fact of life in the district. Mention them if yours are especially steep; she carries a bag and will want to know.
The window is forty to sixty minutes from the confirmed hour, as it is for anywhere central. Several women on the roster set out from the Jordaan, Banks, Chloe, Rita, Sophia and Vivi among them, but the window given is the same for them as for everyone else.
Warming a canal house room for body to body
Turn the radiator up as soon as the hour is confirmed and leave it there. Draw the curtains across the canal windows, which lose more heat than any wall. Lay a towel along the foot of the door to the stairs, and put a rug or a spare blanket on the floor by the bed if the boards are bare.
Body to body is the format for rooms like these, because it brings its own warmth and needs nothing from the bathroom, which in a canal house is often tiny and set against an outside wall. Ninety minutes suits a frosty night.
After the session
A Jordaan evening can end at the window, watching the frost on the canal, or in a brown café on the corner if one is still open. Either way, the room was the warm part of the night. The winter evening page and the warm room note say more.