The Barbizon Palace faces Centraal station across the Prins Hendrikkade, built into a row of seventeenth-century houses at the head of the Zeedijk, one of the oldest streets in the city. For a private guide there is no better address for a first walk through the medieval centre: the Oude Kerk is a few minutes away and Dam Square nine. Walks begin at reception, and for day trips our car collects you at the hotel entrance.
Inside the hotel, reached by an underground passage, is the Sint Olofskapel. It was built around 1440 on a filled-in defensive canal beside the Sint Olofspoort, one of the medieval city gates, and dedicated to Saint Olaf, the Norwegian king, a favourite of the seafarers who used this harbour. From 1586 the city’s merchants met inside to trade, an early forerunner of the Amsterdam exchange, and in 1644 the chapel was enlarged into the Gothic form it has today.
Services ended in the early twentieth century and the building drifted through other uses, a cheese market among them. In 1966 fire gutted it. What remained was eventually sold as a ruin for a single guilder, restored under the architect André van Stigt from 1990, and opened in the early 1990s as the hotel’s event hall, with room for several hundred people under the old roof.
Walk round to the Zeedijk side and look up at the gateway: a carved skeleton and skulls above the words Spes Altera Vitae, hope of another life. It is one of the most photographed doorways in the old centre, and most people who pass it have no idea there is a Gothic chapel behind it.
The hotel around it is younger than it looks. It opened in the late 1980s behind the restored facades, traded as the Golden Tulip Barbizon Palace in the early 1990s, and reopened under NH Collection after a refurbishment in 2016.
A few minutes east along the water is the Schreierstoren, a round tower of 1481 that once anchored the city wall. Guides love to say the name means the weepers’ tower, where sailors’ wives cried as the ships left. It is a good story and almost certainly untrue: the name comes from an old word for a sharp corner in the wall. The plaque on the tower is true, though. In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed from here for the Dutch East India Company and ended up exploring the river in New York that now carries his name.
Next door to the hotel is the Sint Nicolaaskerk, the domed church you see from the station, built between 1884 and 1887 and dedicated to the patron saint of sailors. A short walk down the Zeedijk is the He Hua Temple, opened in 2000 in the presence of Queen Beatrix and described as the largest Buddhist temple in Europe built in traditional Chinese palace style. Three faiths and five centuries, all within a few minutes of the hotel door.
Most of these sit on the route of our Private Around the Red Light District Tour, and the Amsterdam City Highlights Private Tour goes past the others. Tell us which ones matter to you and we plan the day around them.
Six more we suggest from the Barbizon. The Anne Frank and Jewish history tour crosses the canal ring on foot in twenty minutes, and the food tour and Brews and T’Ales both find their way into the old streets around the Nieuwmarkt. The architecture tour can open with the chapel inside your own hotel. For the Rijksmuseum we take the tram or a car south, and Amsterdam in a Day strings the whole city together from your lobby.
Private Anne Frank and Jewish History Walking TourFrom 515 euroView this tour
Private Dutch Food Tour, Eat Like a LocalFrom 445 euroView this tour
Brews and T’Ales, Private Craft Beer TourFrom 500 euroView this tour
Private Architecture Tour AmsterdamFrom 400 euroView this tour
Private Rijksmuseum TourFrom 360 euroView this tour
The Ultimate Amsterdam in a Day TourFrom 990 euroView this tourSee all our private tours from Amsterdam about Private Tours Amsterdam
Being opposite the station makes this one of the easiest hotels in the city to leave from. Your guide arrives at the hotel entrance with a car, and the roads north and west are only minutes away through the IJ tunnel. Zaanse Schans and the villages of Waterland, Keukenhof in spring, Haarlem, Delft and The Hague, or Utrecht are all within easy reach. You will find the full range on our private driving tours page.
The Prins Hendrikkade is a busy main road, so we use the drop-off at the hotel’s main entrance and confirm the pick-up time with you by phone the day before.
The Barbizon is popular with guests arriving by train from Schiphol or from Paris, and advisors often book us for the first morning so the trip starts with context rather than a queue. You deal with one person throughout, your clients have a written itinerary before they travel, and we call them ourselves the evening before each tour. Commission terms are on our travel advisor page.
Guests who prefer to arrange things at the hotel can ask the concierge, who can reach us directly.
Walks begin at reception. For driving tours the car uses the drop-off at the main entrance on the Prins Hendrikkade, and we confirm the time with you by phone the day before.
The chapel is the hotel’s event hall, so going inside depends on what is booked that day. The carved gateway on the Zeedijk side is always there to see, and our architecture guides use it to tell the chapel’s story from 1440 to the fire of 1966.
By day the district is simply the oldest part of Amsterdam, with the Oude Kerk at its heart. Our private Red Light District tour is about history and people rather than nightlife, and it starts a few minutes from the hotel.
On foot it is more than half an hour. The tram from Centraal takes about fourteen minutes and a car about seventeen, and for our private Rijksmuseum tour we will suggest whichever suits your morning.
Yes. The concierge is welcome to make the booking, or you can reach us directly. We then speak to you ourselves before the tour so nothing is lost in between.
A few weeks ahead gives the widest choice, especially for tulip season and weekends, but next-day and even same-day tours are often possible. Use our contact page or call us and we will tell you straight away what we can do.
