Guide · Amsterdam · 2026-10-15
A sauna or body to body in an Amsterdam winter: two ways of getting warm
When the cold has got into your bones after a January day outside, two ideas tend to come up: a public sauna somewhere in the city, or a body to body booking in your hotel room. Both are about warmth, and both draw plenty of visitors in the dark months. They make very different evenings, though, and the difference is worth knowing before you choose.
The sauna evening
Amsterdam has a handful of large saunas that stay open into the evening. The ritual will be familiar to anyone who has used one elsewhere in northern Europe: heat, a cold plunge or shower, rest, and round again. Many are mixed, and towel customs differ from place to place, so it pays to read the house rules before you go.
The appeal is real. A few hours of dry heat and steam on a grey day is a fine way to spend an afternoon. The catch, in winter, is the end of the visit. You leave warm and loose, and walk out into wind and rain, often in the dark, towards a tram stop or a bicycle.
Saunas run to their own timetable as well. Some set aside particular days or hours for different groups, and the busier ones fill up on wet weekends when half the city has had the same thought. Checking the day's arrangement before setting out saves a cold walk to a door that turns out not to be open to you that afternoon.
The body to body evening
Body to body comes to you. The warmth arrives through contact and warmed oil rather than through hot air, and it builds gradually over the session instead of hitting you at the door. There is no journey home afterwards, because you are already there.
There is nothing to pack either. Towels and oil come with her, the room's own towels stay dry for afterwards, and the only thing you carry is the phone you wrote from.
It does ask something of your room: warmth, space along one long side of the bed, and a little preparation. In a canal house with a slow radiator, the heating needs to go on as soon as the hour is confirmed.
Comparing the two
Company: a sauna is shared with strangers, while body to body is a private hour with one therapist. Timing: a sauna fits a free afternoon, and an outcall hour fits the evening, with a window of forty to sixty minutes from the confirmed hour. Afterwards: a sauna leaves you to face the weather, while the outcall hour leaves you in a warm room. Effort: a sauna needs a bag packed and a trip across town, outcall only a message and a radiator turned up.
Doing both
The two combine well. A sauna in the afternoon and a body to body hour in the evening makes a fine dark-month day for some visitors: heat from outside first, then heat from contact, with dinner in between. If you plan it that way, arrange the evening session before you set off, so the hour is waiting when you get back.
For the evening itself, the winter evening page and the warm room note cover the room, and the body to body page covers the format.