Massage Amsterdam after a winter evening walk round the light festival

Each winter the festival picks a theme and commissions light installations from artists, then sets them over the water and along the quays of the centre. The route can be seen by boat, but plenty of visitors prefer to walk it, map in hand, from one artwork to the next. It is a slow evening walk in December or January weather: dark by five, often damp, sometimes bitterly cold, and lovely enough that people stay out longer than they meant to.

Cold feet and a long route

The walking route covers a good stretch of the canal ring, and it is done at a stroll, with stops at every installation and crowds at the popular ones. Gloves come off for photographs, hands go cold, and feet in city shoes grow numb on wet stone. Many people round off the walk with a drink at a café by the water and only then notice, on the way back, how chilled they are.

Booking a massage in Amsterdam for after the light walk

Write before you set out. Decide roughly how long you will walk, add the trip back to your room and a hot shower, and ask for that hour. If you are unsure, choose the later hour and send an update when you start back; it is kinder to ask for a later start than to keep her waiting at a door. Give the floor and room number, and in a flat say whether the street door will be locked by then.

Winter dates and the deposit

Part of the festival season overlaps the holiday fortnight from Christmas into the first days of January, which is a peak date: every booking in that stretch carries a deposit of half the fee. Outside it the usual rules apply, and an evening in early December or in the middle of January is no different from any other. Either way the figure on her profile stays the same, and the peak date entry gives the exact list. For the daytime side of a winter visit, the page on a cold January day covers the museums and the wind.

Warming up before she arrives

Turn the heating up as soon as you are in, before the shower, so the room has time to catch up. Put the wet shoes by the radiator and the coat in the bathroom. She brings towels and oil with her, and a warm room is the one thing she cannot bring.