It's been a month since our trip to Amsterdam and I still miss that beautiful city, that can't be normal can it?! If you've read my review of Yays Oostenburgergracht, then you'll know we stayed there for the first two nights of our trip, and today I want to tell you all about where we stayed for the last two nights, Volkshotel!
You might have read the title of this post and thought, 'yeah right, how cool can a hotel really be?', but trust me, Volkshotel is unlike any other hotel I've ever stayed in and if I ever go back to Amsterdam (which I hopefully will), I'll definitely stay in here again. It's such a lively place, full of really interesting people which was absolute heaven for someone like myself who loves to people watch. Volkshotel has 'standard' and 'special' rooms. The standard rooms range from 2 person rooms, to 4 person rooms, so if you're travelling to Amsterdam with a group, they're perfect. The special rooms all have their own unique theme, and we stayed in the White Bike Room which really was quite something.
True to it's name, the White Bike Room was featured a lot of bicycles. They were all over the walls, with their headlights adding some very nice mood lighting, and even the bed had an antique bike attached to it. I've never stayed in a themed hotel room, so when we first walked in after checking in, I was quite amazed. I was even more amazed when I saw the breathtaking view we had of the city out of the ginormous window, and the bath that was directly in front of the window!
The bathroom setup in this hotel room was a little different to what I'm used to. As well as the bath by the window, there was a sink behind the bed, and a bathroom with a toilet and shower on the other side of the wall from the sink which you can kind of see in the middle picture above. The room was lovely and bright thanks to the huge window that took up the entire exterior wall of the room, and while it definitely wasn't the type of decor I'm used to in hotels, I really loved this room and all it's little quirks.
I've saved the best part of the White Bike Room for last because it really is quite spectacular, it has a projector with Netflix! As much as I loved the bath next to the window, and the super comfy bed, the fact this room basically has it's own cinema was definitely my favourite part. When we first walked into the room and saw the huge window and no curtains, we were a bit worried about how early the sunrise would wake us up, until we realised there was a projector screen which actually doubled as a blind. We then spotted an LCD screen on the wall to the right of the bed which is where you could control Netflix and also hook up your own laptop if you wanted. The room actually had it's own Netflix account so we didn't even have to log into our own one.
Before becoming this super trendy hotel, Volkshotel was actually owned by De Volkskrant, one of the
biggest Dutch newspapers for 42 years. When the newspaper moved out in 2007, the building was
abandoned until it was used as a shared workspace for creative minds. One of the journalists working there decided to reopen the old journalist canteen on the 7th floor and called it Canvas, and that's where Volkshotel really started. The hotel's restaurant is still called Canvas and offered panoramic views of the city. Although we didn't actually eat there, we did go up to have a look when we were first exploring the hotel and you can still get a feel of what the building used to be which I think is very cool.
Above the restaurant is my second favourite thing about Volkshotel, the Baadplats (which means bathing place). When we booked this trip, one of the main things I was excited for was getting to go in a hot tub on the rooftop of a hotel, like how insane is that?! The Baadplats features three hot tubs and a sauna, with male and female changing rooms and complimentary towels in case you forget to bring yours up from your room. I thought the views from the 7th floor were incredible, but they really didn't compare to sitting in a hot tub looking out over Amsterdam, it's definitely something I'll never forget!
Just like I mentioned earlier in this post, Volkshotel is so lively and full of people and the main 'lobby' of the hotel has a cafe/bar and serves as a meeting place for lots of people in Amsterdam. Our flight home was quite late in the evening so after our final day exploring the city, we came back to the hotel and enjoyed a few very delicious coffees and some people watching before heading out to the airport. One thing I should mentioned is that there's a metro station not even 100 metres down the road from the hotel, so while it may seem like you're a bit out of the city, everything is only a few metro stops away! If you're planning a trip to Amsterdam soon, you can find all of my posts about the wonderful city right here. Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review of Volkshotel!