Staying at Reszel Zamek in Poland offers a fascinating blend of medieval charm and historical atmosphere, though some guests may find the facilities a little rustic compared to modern hotels, making it best suited for those who value character over luxury.
Netherlands: Amsterdam – Hotel Not Hotel
🚋 A Hotel Where the Rooms Are Frankly Ridiculous
In our ongoing mission to track down the most peculiar places to lay our weary heads, we stumbled across something rather brilliant whilst trawling through the usual hospitality websites — the Hotel Not Hotel, tucked away in Amsterdam.
Now, this isn’t your standard Premier Inn with its dependable mediocrity and slightly scratchy towels. The Hotel Not Hotel has only a handful of rooms, and every single one of them is, to put it charitably, eccentric. We’re talking rooms concealed behind proper bookcases — the sort of thing you’d only find in a dodgy spy novel — alongside a genuine VW campervan and an actual vintage tramcar, both of which are, brilliantly, inside the building.
We were rather drawn to the tramcar. Not for any deeply romantic reason, mind you — it simply looked marginally more spacious than the VW. Though, if we’re being honest, “marginally” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
🛎️ Checking In — And Feeling Magnificently Ancient
When we rocked up at the Hotel Not Hotel, we were met by a gaggle of enthusiastic young staff who were friendly, helpful, and — rather depressingly — young enough to be our grandchildren. The whole place has that unmistakable energy of somewhere that considers itself more of a hostel than a hotel, which is fine, of course, entirely fine, and not at all the sort of thing that makes a man of a certain age quietly question his life choices.
We were, it’s fair to say, the oldest guests by a considerable margin. Possibly by several decades. Nobody said anything, naturally, because the British don’t do that sort of thing, but we could sense it.
🚋 Life Inside the Tramcar
Now, the tramcar itself. Cosy is absolutely the right word — and we mean that in both the generous and the brutally honest sense. It is, essentially, a bed. A perfectly comfortable bed, we should say, and on that front it delivered admirably. But beyond the bed, the tramcar offers the traveller precisely nothing in the way of storage, and there is, rather predictably, no ensuite bathroom.
This is the sort of arrangement that would have our younger selves cheerfully shrugging. Our current selves required a brief moment of quiet acceptance.
That said, we were only there for a couple of nights, so living out of our suitcases wasn’t the hardship it sounds. Think of it as camping — but with a genuinely decent mattress and slightly less mud. Which, all things considered, is the best kind of camping there is.
🚿 Prepare Yourself for the Communal Experience
Now, here’s where things get a little… continental. As only a couple of the rooms come with their own private bathroom, the rest of us were left to navigate the communal facilities — which, being Amsterdam and therefore resolutely European about these things, meant a single shared bathroom area for both sexes.
Before any of you start reaching for the smelling salts, do bear in mind that everything is in individual cubicles — toilets and showers all properly enclosed. Some cubicles, in a move that can only be described as admirably efficient, managed to squeeze both a toilet and a shower into the same space. Cosy doesn’t quite cover it.
It’s perfectly civilised, really, once you get past the mild cultural shock of queuing for the sink alongside someone you’ve never met who may or may not be of a different gender. The Dutch, bless them, have long since stopped caring about this sort of thing.
If, however, the very idea of mixed-sex shared facilities brings you out in a cold sweat, then the Hotel Not Hotel is probably not going to be your happy place. Best stick to the Travelodge.
🥓 Kevin Bacon: The Bar That Just Gets On With It
Attached to the Hotel Not Hotel is a bar and restaurant that goes by the name of Kevin Bacon — yes, that Kevin Bacon, the actor. The thinking behind the name was rather straightforward and, frankly, quite good: they wanted it to be the Kevin Bacon of bars. You know the concept — six degrees of separation, everybody knows somebody who knows Kevin Bacon. The idea being that this place would be unpretentious, welcoming, and just quietly gets the job done without making a fuss about it. We liked that philosophy enormously. It’s the sort of attitude the British used to have before we started putting pulled pork on absolutely everything and calling it “street food.”
During the day, Kevin Bacon serves breakfast — though don’t go expecting it to be bundled into your room rate, because it very much isn’t. Come evening, the whole place transforms into a cocktail bar serving Thai food, which is, when you think about it, a perfectly reasonable combination. Cocktails and Thai food. Nobody’s writing a letter of complaint about that.
We have to confess, however, that we didn’t actually sample either the breakfast or the Thai food. We drank the beer. That was our contribution to the Kevin Bacon experience, and we feel no particular shame about it. The food may well have been magnificent — judging by how busy the place was each evening, with barely a spare seat to be found, it almost certainly was — but we shall leave that verdict to someone who actually ordered something off the menu.
We had been mildly concerned, before arrival, that being quartered quite so close to a lively bar might result in a rather sleepless few nights, particularly given the notably youthful crowd it attracted. As it turned out, that worry was entirely unfounded. Not a peep. Which, given the volume of beer being enthusiastically consumed just the other side of the wall, was something of a minor miracle.
Hotel Not Hotel, Amsterdam
Hotel Not Hotel sits in Amsterdam’s De Baarsjes district, a little west of the city centre. The concept is straightforward: each of the 23 rooms is a distinct piece of art, designed by a different artist or collective. You might sleep inside a vintage tram carriage, behind a hidden bookcase, or in a room styled as a Spanish villa. Rooms range from 5 to 23 square metres, and some share bathroom facilities, so check what you’re booking. The lobby functions as a communal living room, with books, seating areas, and the Kevin Bacon Bar serving Thai food and cocktails in the evenings. It’s an independent, small-scale hotel that works well for travellers who want something other than a standard room, though it won’t suit everyone.
Planning Your Stay
- Address: Piri Reisplein 34, 1057 KH Amsterdam
- Getting there: Tram lines 7 and 17 stop nearby (Kinkerstraat). Schiphol Airport is around 9 km away; taxis take roughly 20–30 minutes
- Website: hotelnothotel.com
- Telephone: +31 (0)20 820 45 38
- Approximate costs: Rooms start from around €80–90 per night for a basic double; larger or more elaborate rooms typically run €150–200+. Weekend stays require a minimum of two nights
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Not Hotel. It was fun and had a youthful energy about the place. If you are looking for luxury, your own personal space and unisex bathroom facilities you will need to look somewhere else. I would definitely recommend staying there.
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