THE COLLEGE

It’s a college on two counts. Just five months old, the hotel was formerly a place of learning (economics), but it is now run by students from the city’s hotel training school, under the guidance of a professional management team. Despite the L-plates, it all works seamlessly (although you might want to avoid the first week of September, when the new intake begins its practicals).

The late-19th-century building is an architectural triumph of ornate brickwork. Located in elegant Amsterdam South, near the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum and the smart stores of PC Hooftstraat, the College has 40 sumptuous and individually designed rooms, most with enormous windows overlooking a quiet bricked and pebbled courtyard.

There’s a lively bar and a restaurant with an open kitchen, again the domain of students, serving modern — and, thankfully, lighter — variations on traditional Dutch dishes. A five-course extravaganza will set you back £35.

Doubles from £143, room-only; 00 31 20 571 1511, www.thecollegehotel.com

For quirky character

THE LLOYD

There’s nowhere quite like the Lloyd hotel. Jointly created by a lawyer, a doctor/cook, an art curator and an underground party organiser, it opened a year ago in the run-down/born-again eastern docklands, converted from a huge, rather severe 1920s listed waterfront building, built to house migrants en route from eastern Europe to the Americas.

It is a brilliant work of reinvention and full of creative surprises — baths, and even showers, in the middle of some of the 116 bedrooms, one with a 12ft-wide bed, another with a grand piano. A mobile recording studio will be available from early 2006. The Lloyd also breaks new ground in hospitality by offering a choice of one- to five-star room options, the former with shared bathrooms (towelling robes are provided for middle-of-the-night calls). Other facilities include a restaurant (Snel, meaning brisk), a shop for groceries if you want to picnic in the room and a superb library of art books, as well as space for visiting artists.

Doubles from £55, £68, £96, £123 or £191, according to stars; 00 31 20 561 3636, www.lloydhotel.com

For pure romance

SEVEN ONE SEVEN

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