Best Hotel Bets

The Best Splurge Hotels

• Amstel InterContinental Amsterdam, Professor Tulpplein 1 (tel. 020/622-6060): The last word in opulence offers much more, including one of the city's best restaurants and a superb location beside the Amstel River. This is the first choice of visiting celebrities, so don't be surprised if you see famous faces.
• Amsterdam American, Leidsekade 97 (tel. 020/556-3000): This hotel boasts the best location in town -- it's on Leidseplein, Amsterdam's most lively square, and is close to theaters, cinemas, and a casino. Location aside, this is a fine hotel, and its Art Deco-style Café Americain is a city institution.
• Grand Sofitel Demeure Amsterdam, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 197 (tel. 020/555-3111): The Grand really is rather grand, both inside and out; it once served as the seat of the Amsterdam Admiralty and the city council, among other official municipal functions since the 15th century. Now it guards its virtue along a tranquil canal edging the Red Light District.
• Hotel Pulitzer, Prinsengracht 315-331 (tel. 020/523-5235): No fewer than 25 old canal houses on Prinsengracht were reconverted to create this hotel, which would ordinarily be considered a serious loss, except that the Pulitzer is a real prizewinner.

The Best Moderately Priced Hotels

• Hotel Agora, Singel 462 (tel. 020/627-2200): Those canal-house hotels that don't hit you over the head with opulence more than make up for it with the personal touch. This paragon of the type feels like a canal-side home.
• Ambassade Hotel, Herengracht 341 (tel. 020/555-0222): Here, in 10 neighboring canal houses on the Golden Bend (for centuries the city's most fashionable district), you'll feel you're in the home of a rich 17th-century merchant. Most of the spacious, individually styled rooms have large windows overlooking the canal.
• Hotel Arena, 's-Gravesandestraat 51 (tel. 020/850-2410): What this unusual place has, in spades, is an action-oriented and informal temperament that's typical of Amsterdam -- the kind of shared outlook that attracts many to this city in the first place. Arena combines this unpretentiousness bustle with genuine style and a judicious level of comfort.
• Hotel de Filosoof, Anna van den Vondelstraat 6 (tel. 020/683-3013): Few -- if any -- hotels have an operating philosophy as distinctive as this one, which takes its inspiration from the great thinkers of the past. And this is no shameless sophistry disguising a grim underlying truth. In this case, idealism has produced a more-than-acceptable reality.
• Seven Bridges, Reguliersgracht 31 (tel. 020/623-1329): In some hotels, you realize the owners aren't just running a business, but doing what they love. This is that kind of place. It's obvious that all the furniture, fixtures, and fittings have been selected with loving care, and guests receive the same conscientious attention.