Gay Amsterdam Amsterdam City Guide

Curation by Yasmina Rodríguez, words by Lauren Murphy

Amsterdam always delivers, packed as it is with romantic cobblestone streets and canal waterways lined with lilting merchant houses, eyebrow-raising museums and independent design studios crafting everything from art to fixie bikes. This Dutch capital is one of Europe’s most popular city breaks, receiving 4.5 million tourists annually, for very good reason. Its progressive history and watery whereabouts have lot to do with Amsterdam’s global stardom, established in the 12th century as a fishing village and since becoming a firm multicultural metropolis where antiquated and modern architecture align and over a thousand bridges connect locals to countless coffee shops and a renowned Red Light District. While the Amstel is Amsterdam’s traditional LGBT hub, no one can contain this city’s gay pride, which outflows into the historic areas of Kerkstraat, Regulierdwarsstraat, Zeedijk and Warmoesstraat, as well as around the entire city, particularly during Pride in August. Famously free-spirited, laid back and liveable, Amsterdam is the perfect gaycation. But how exactly do you choose what to see in Amsterdam? Here’s where Mr Hudson’s Amsterdam gay city guide can help you out.

The best hotels in Amsterdam

Any Amsterdam sojourn worth its salt begins with a considered choice of base. For those who believe a hotel should provoke as much as it pampers, the Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht — the former city library, redesigned by Dutch visionary Marcel Wanders — delivers surrealist theatre at every turn. Oversized chandeliers, celestial lobby installations and the largest canal-facing terrace suite in the city make this Jordaan-adjacent property an artistic statement as much as a place to sleep.

Equally captivating, the Pulitzer Amsterdam is a labyrinthine journey through twenty-five interconnected 17th and 18th-century canal houses straddling the Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht. The 225 rooms range from beamed attic retreats to the atmospheric Collector’s Suites, each inspired by an imagined past resident, while the leather-clad Pulitzer’s Bar and Jansz. restaurant complete an offering that is romantic, rarefied and thoroughly Amsterdam.

Pulitzer Amsterdam

The Hoxton Amsterdam occupies five grand canal houses on the Herengracht — once the private residence of the city’s mayor — and transforms patrician heritage into something considerably more convivial. Brass chandeliers and restored ceiling frescoes coexist with vintage leather headboards and the brand’s signature rough-luxe sensibility, and the open-plan lobby remains one of the most socially vibrant spaces in the canal belt.

East of the centre, overlooking the verdant Oosterpark, Pillows Maurits at the Park is housed in a beautifully preserved 1908 university building and delivers 88 rooms of measured opulence: muted tones, Diptyque amenities, a rooftop bar and a fine-dining restaurant in the former museum hall. It is, in the best possible sense, a retreat from the city — even while remaining firmly within it.