For a brief time in the Dutch Golden Age, there was one commodity that induced a kind of mania among the residents of the capital’s canals: the humble tulip. (At the height of the bubble, a couple of bulbs could cost as much as some houses in the city.) Sure, today you can nab a few tubers for a handful of euros at the city’s floating flower market—but that hasn’t stopped green-thumbed travelers from assembling every spring to experience tulip fever anew.
It makes sense, then, that a fresh guard of hotels is branching out—quite literally—into Amsterdam’s leafier corners. (Given the city’s efficient trams and 250 miles of bicycle paths, being a little removed is hardly a problem.) Take Pillows Maurits at the Park, the latest hotel from a boutique family-owned group, which opened late in 2022 within a stylishly renovated former university building in the idyllic Oosterpark. As well as offering its very own aviary, the hotel is a mere 15-minute walk from the city’s Hortus Botanicus, one of the world’s oldest botanical gardens. (On a visit last spring, I spent the best part of a morning gazing at the dazzling array of plants that tower under the soaring glass ceilings of its greenhouses.)
If you’re willing to venture even further afield, a historic salon boat, which has been retrofitted with an electric engine, can transport you to the recently opened hotel De Durgerdam, situated in a former fishing village, in less than an hour. (It’s a 15-minute drive, if you’re in a hurry.) There, 14 rooms overlook the dappled gray waters of the IJmeer lake on one side and low-lying farmlands on the other—on a recent winter visit the landscapes revealed themselves through a briny, mirage-like mist. Enter its jewel-box interiors, however, and a different atmosphere is conjured: With its flickering candles and dusky palette, it has all the convivial charm of a picaresque Frans Hals canvas.
Of course, there are plenty of more established Amsterdam stays that will cater to plant-loving pilgrims, such as the sprawling, 93-room Waldorf Astoria, which includes one of the city’s largest private grachtentuinen (or canal gardens). Later this year, an enormous new Rosewood outpost will open with three verdant inner courtyards. Also upcoming: Amstel 111, a new and more centrally located property from the team behind De Durgerdam, whose interiors are set to be crafted by cult New York design duo Roman and Williams with architecture from rising star Frida Escobedo. Let a thousand tulips bloom.