Rosewood Amsterdam occupies a building with a stranger past than almost anything else on the canals: the city orphanage for a century and a half, then Amsterdam’s Palace of Justice for another 177 years, and a hotel only since 2025. We are a private tour company based here in Amsterdam. You are on the Prinsengracht with the museums to the south, the canal ring to the north and the antiques quarter a few minutes away, which means a guide can walk you out of the door in almost any direction and have something to talk about within a minute.
In 1663 the city set aside this land for the Aalmoezeniersweeshuis, the municipal orphanage. Building started that December and the first children moved in on 1 January 1666. It was meant for eight hundred. By 1807 it held more than 2,500, and the accounts from the period make hard reading: children three and four to a cot, pale, with skin complaints and headaches. The orphanage closed in 1825.
The architect Jan de Greef then redesigned the whole building as a courthouse. The plan was approved by royal decree in 1826, the cost split three ways between the national government, the city and the province, and the Palace of Justice opened on 4 October 1836. The facade you walk in through is his: a classical sandstone front with three arched passages in the central bay and an inscription honouring King William I. The courts sat here for 177 years and moved out to the new Palace of Justice on the IJ in April 2013.
Rosewood opened here on 1 May 2025 after a decade of restoration. One hundred and thirty four rooms and suites, a garden by the Dutch planting designer Piet Oudolf, a bar named Advocatuur after the lawyers who used to fill the corridors, and a library in what was once a courtroom. It is worth ten minutes of a guide’s time before you even step outside, and most of our guests here start exactly that way.
Frankey is an Amsterdam artist who has spent years hiding small sculptures around the city, bolted to bollards, railings, drainpipes and lamp posts, almost always as a joke about the object he is attaching them to. We map all of them. Our Streetart Frankey map tracks 491 works across Amsterdam with photographs, locations and a note on whether each one is still standing.
Eight of those 491 are inside Rosewood Amsterdam. Search the map for Rosewood and they come up together. Guests walk past most of them without noticing, which is rather the point of his work, and tracking down all eight is a genuinely good half hour before breakfast.
Outside the hotel the hunting is just as good. The Vijzelgracht and the Weteringschans both have pieces within a few minutes of the door, and a guide who knows the map can thread half a dozen of them into a walk that is really about something else entirely.
Your guide can string several of these together in a single walk. They appear on the Private Rijksmuseum Tour, and the Private Van Gogh Museum Tour passes close by.
Six more we would suggest from Rosewood. City Highlights and Amsterdam in a Day both start at your own front door on the Prinsengracht. The architecture tour begins with the building itself, the former Palace of Justice, and the photo tour works the canal ring around it. The Anne Frank House is about fifteen minutes up your own canal, and Guide for a Day is there if you would rather keep the day open.
Amsterdam City Highlights Private TourFrom 400 euroView this tour
Private Architecture Tour AmsterdamFrom 400 euroView this tour
Guide for a DayFrom 1,000 euroView this tour
The Ultimate Amsterdam in a Day TourFrom 990 euroView this tour
Private Photo Tour AmsterdamFrom 400 euroView this tour
Private Anne Frank and Jewish History Walking TourFrom 515 euroView this tourSee all our private tours from Amsterdam about Private Tours Amsterdam
We collect you at the hotel with a car and a private guide and return you to the same door. Zaanse Schans and the windmill villages, the tulip fields and Keukenhof between late March and mid May, Delft and The Hague for the Vermeers, Giethoorn, the castles at Muiderslot and De Haar. Most run seven to nine hours, and the full choice is on our private driving tours page.
Rosewood is straightforward for a car. The building fronts the Prinsengracht but the quarter is well served by the Weteringschans and the Singelgracht, so the ring road takes minutes. We confirm the exact pick-up spot and time with you directly the evening before.
Seven minutes from the hotel the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat runs in a dead straight line to the front of the Rijksmuseum, and along it are more than seventy antiques dealers and art galleries. Old Master paintings, Delftware, ship models, scientific instruments, Asian ceramics, twentieth century design.
It exists because the Rijksmuseum opened in 1885, and within about fifteen years dealers had worked out that everybody walking towards it was interested in exactly what they were selling. Almost nobody buys anything, and that is fine. The dealers are used to it and most are happy to talk.
It is the only street in Amsterdam where you can study a seventeenth century still life in a shop window for free, walk five minutes, and then see the museum-grade version of the same thing on a wall. We use it as the opening act of the Rijksmuseum tour rather than an afterthought.
A large share of our work comes through advisors and concierge teams. One point of contact, written confirmations your client can read before they fly, guides who arrive early, and direct contact with the guests themselves the day before so everyone knows where and when to meet. Our travel advisor page has the commission terms and a direct line.
If the concierge would rather hold the booking, they can. Send them our details and we will deal with them directly.
Yes. Every tour we run can begin at the hotel, on foot from the lobby or by car from a confirmed point a short walk away. We confirm the meeting point with you directly the day before.
The city orphanage from 1666, then Amsterdam’s Palace of Justice from 1836 until the courts moved out in 2013. The hotel opened in May 2025. Our private architecture tour covers the building and the canal it stands on.
There are eight of them. They are all recorded on our Streetart Frankey map, which tracks 491 of his works across the city. Search the map for Rosewood and they come up together.
About twelve minutes on foot, and the best route runs through the Spiegelkwartier antiques quarter. Our private Rijksmuseum tour is led by an art historian and starts at the hotel.
Yes. We collect you at Rosewood and bring you back. Zaanse Schans, Keukenhof in spring, Giethoorn, Delft and The Hague all work comfortably from this address. The full range is on our private driving tours page.
There is no cut-off, and last minute is genuinely fine. Booking two to four weeks ahead gives the widest choice of guides, and Keukenhof in April does fill up, but we arrange tours at short notice all the time. If you are already at the hotel and want something tomorrow, just ask through the contact page or call.
