Over the last 50 years, the Ambassade has grown to stretch over ten neighbouring 17th-century canal-side houses. As a result, the rooms come in an array of shapes, sizes and prices, but the one constant remains the elegance of the place, and its hushed atmosphere of what might loosely be described as discrete sophistication. The immediate surroundings are as quiet as the hotel’s library, but the hullaballoo of Amsterdam’s hedonistic centre is a few minutes’ stroll. The Ambassade touts itself as a cultural hotel, and with some justification. There are genuine Cobra movement artworks (the brief, early 1950s Avant garde scene based between Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam), and have been a number of literary guests. Some of these have left signed works in the hotel’s library, which guests have access to. A discrete spot for cultural sophisticates.