Red Light District, as it sleeps
Rooms in De Wallen come with a feature no other district offers, and it is the light. Red lamps and neon signs burn along the canals and alleys until the windows close, and a room facing the Oudezijds Achterburgwal can glow pink with the curtains open. Some guests like that for an oil hour and leave a gap; most draw the curtains and use a bedside lamp. The rooms themselves tend to be small, in narrow buildings with staircases so steep that a rope sometimes serves as the handrail, and oil suits them better than anything else we sell, because it needs a bed and a few minutes of shower afterwards rather than a wide bathroom. The corridors are another matter. Budget hotels on the Warmoesstraat fill with stag parties at weekends, and a hallway of loud strangers turns out to be the most anonymous place in the city to walk through quietly, which is exactly what she does. On the calmer stretches toward the Zeedijk and the Nieuwmarkt, the building will usually be asleep before midnight.