Massage Amsterdam after a day trip to Zaanse Schans, the windmills and the wind
Written for visitorsThe windmills north-west of the city make a day trip that needs almost no planning: a short train ride, a walk over the river, an afternoon among green wooden houses. The ride back in the late afternoon is the natural moment to arrange a massage in Amsterdam for the evening.
Zaanse Schans is a small village of wooden houses and working windmills on the bank of the Zaan, gathered there from around the region and kept much as they looked a few centuries ago. Visitors reach it by train from Centraal in well under half an hour, then cross the bridge over the river to the mills. It is a gentle day on paper. In practice it involves a good deal of standing in the wind, some steep wooden steps and a fair walk back to the station.
What the mills ask of a visitor
Several of the mills can be visited inside, and the way up to the stage that runs around the body of the mill is a set of stairs closer to a ladder than a staircase. Going up is simple enough; coming down backwards, gripping the rail, is what the thighs remember later. Out on the stage the wind comes straight across the flat meadows with nothing to stop it. Add the clog workshop, the cheese farm and a slow walk along the dike, and the day holds more hours on foot than the map suggests.
Booking the massage Amsterdam evening from the train back
The train back to Centraal is the place to write. By then you can tell when you will reach the room, and the reply has time to arrive before the train pulls in. Ask for an hour that leaves room for a shower, since the wind leaves a fine grit on the skin and in the hair. If you would like a particular woman, name her from the therapists; if not, ask for whoever is free at your hour.
The session happens in the city, not at the mills
The house only comes to addresses in Amsterdam, plus airport hotels by arrangement, so the session takes place in the room you return to, not in a guesthouse beside the Zaan. If you are sleeping in the city, the forty to sixty minutes run from confirmation as on any other evening. Anyone who has booked a night outside Amsterdam should know before writing that the house cannot travel there.
A note on the cold
Even in summer the wind at the mills can chill you more than the thermometer admits. Turn the room heating up as soon as you are in, and let her know in the thread if you came back cold; it is the kind of detail she likes to have before she sets out. Body to body massage is the warmer of the techniques on offer, and each service page describes its technique in plain terms.