Five chic city hotels in the Low Countries

Grand designs in Ghent

Once the city’s grand old post office, 1898 The Post is now its grand new hotel. Opened in 2017 across the top two floors of the turn-of-the-20th-century building, it was developed by Zannier Hotels, the Belgian company whose properties in Cambodia and Namibia bring Flemish chic to far-flung locations. That aesthetic reaches its apogee here, and though Zannier no longer operates the hotel, all the gleaming vestiges remain.

There are soaring ceilings with intricate mouldings and a great deal of painted boiserie. It’s high Belgian chic as imagined by a set designer. Why Ghent? Besides its famous eponymous altarpiece, attributed to Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert, there are artisans, antiques dealers, perfect dim cafés, lovely public gardens and MSK, the city’s museum of fine arts – founded in 1798, 32 years before Belgium itself. 1898thepost.com, from €179

A forever favourite address in Antwerp

Antwerp’s Hotel Julien has earned a diehard following since 2000, when it opened on a narrow paved street a block away from the Cathedral of Our Lady. Like many of the tall, narrow houses surrounding it, the Julien dates to the 1600s; a second building was incorporated to add more rooms about 15 years ago. The interiors are quintessential Low Countries, which is to say, a bit of 17th-century, a bit of art deco, some midcentury modern and a few pieces by heroes of contemporary design all layered over each other against a limewashed backdrop.

(The Julien’s owner, Mouche Van Hool, is also behind the August, another house hotel which she enlisted Vincent Van Duysen, her much-laurelled fellow Antwerper, to design; she herself worked as an interior designer for years.) At the Julien you’re ideally positioned to explore the city’s best, from Dries Van Noten’s Modepaleis and Graanmarkt 13 (still one of the best hybrids of retail and dining in northern Europe) to the house of Peter Paul Rubens, which is today a museum. hotel-julien.com, from €190

Old-school Brussels charm

Le Dixseptième is a hotel I’ve personally recommended probably a dozen times over the past 20 years. It’s not luxury in any of that term’s modern manifestations, and this is an entirely good thing. In dimension, architecture and atmosphere, it leans delightfully to the old school, and from the service to the last design element there’s a lack of pretence that is charming in the true sense.

The smallish 17th-century ambassador’s house – a renovation of the original – arguably holds the most appealing of the hotel’s 37 rooms (the ones with the corner and wide timber floors, glossy painted beamed ceilings and tall windows). The others are spread across two newer surrounding structures, all with access to the pretty manicured courtyard and sun-trap lawn. The décor is elegant and never tries too hard – modest chandeliers, Persian rugs on polished parquet, an exquisite 20th-century wrought-iron staircase. Not that a few indulgences haven’t been incorporated, including a small gym and infrared sauna and a generous continental breakfast. The fact you’re a two-minute walk from the Grand Place doesn’t hurt. ledixseptieme.be, from €170

A haute corner of The Hague

When I was in my 30s I lived in Rotterdam for a little over a year – a good deal of which period I spent fervently wishing I lived in The Hague instead. Its combination of modest dimensions, a world-beating museum (the Mauritshuis) hiding in plain sight, a thoroughly international populace and beautiful 17th-century palaces on pretty squares – plus the polish it evinced, which always seemed to outdo that of much bigger Amsterdam – made me a fast fan.

I often finished a long day’s strolling: in the lounge at the lovely Hotel des Indes, sipping tea or snacking on the best bitterballen in western Holland. Long before Jacques Garcia was a byword for flamboyant European hotel interiors, he made a real statement here, casting the old interiors in his signature rich reds and purples and scads of passementerie. The classic doubles aren’t capacious, but they are lushly upholstered and very comfortable. And the bones of Willem III’s original pleasure palace remain intact, mirrored walls, grand staircase and all. hoteldesindesthehague.com, from about €240

Amsterdam’s old gem is new again

Twenty years ago, Hotel 717 was the place to stay in Amsterdam, with its nine enormous suites each individually decorated and handsome staff whose friendliness belied the hotel’s patrician façade. In 2022 the former merchant mansion was renovated, the plan expanded to incorporate a full 23 rooms.

In place of the multi-hued eclecticism that characterised the previous design, an elegant palette of grey, white and biscuit prevails. But the views onto the Prinsengracht, the city’s noblest canal, remain, as do the beautiful sash windows from the original structure. Breakfast – delivered to your door in a large woven basket, if you prefer that to the downstairs dining room – is a delight of fresh breads, house-made yoghurt and fruits. 717hotel.nl, from about €340