Immortal Dance,
chauffeured.
A full house in the old church on the Weteringschans. Paradiso is a converted church with a balcony running round the main hall, and it sounds and feels like nowhere else in the city. On a Friday during the week it is packed from the first hour.
Friday 23 October, at the Paradiso.
The heaviest night on paper. Day programmes and night programmes overlap, several rooms run double bills, and crossing town between them is the whole art of it.
Paradiso is a converted church with a balcony running round the main hall, and it sounds and feels like nowhere else in the city. On a Friday during the week it is packed from the first hour.
It stands on the Weteringschans near the Leidseplein, which means the arrival is central, quick and — for anyone driving themselves — close to impossible to park.
A few minutes from anywhere in the canal belt, allowing for the Weteringcircuit, which is slow at every hour. From Schiphol it is the A4 and the S106, around half an hour.
Paradiso empties onto a busy stretch of the Weteringschans. Your chauffeur takes the kerb space that is free, or the corner of the Nieuwe Vijzelstraat if the front is blocked, and dispatch tells you which before you walk out.
Weteringschans, near the Leidseplein.
Paradiso, the converted church on the Weteringschans, is a two-minute walk from the Leidseplein and shares all of its traffic problems: trams, bridges and a permanent queue at the Weteringcircuit.
We set down on the Weteringschans itself where the kerb allows, or just around the corner on the Nieuwe Vijzelstraat when the front is blocked. Both are a short walk to the doors.
Paradiso, the converted church on the Weteringschans, is a two-minute walk from the Leidseplein and shares all of its traffic problems: trams, bridges and a permanent queue at the Weteringcircuit. Your chauffeur checks the roads before setting off rather than when he arrives, and the price is fixed when you book, whatever the traffic does.
We set down on the Weteringschans itself where the kerb allows, or just around the corner on the Nieuwe Vijzelstraat when the front is blocked. Both are a short walk to the doors.
Yes, and on this night it is the sensible way to do it. Paradiso empties onto a busy stretch of the Weteringschans. Your chauffeur takes the kerb space that is free, or the corner of the Nieuwe Vijzelstraat if the front is blocked, and dispatch tells you which before you walk out. Book the return at the same time as the outward ride, or keep one car and chauffeur for the whole night by the hour, from €65 an hour in Business Class with a two-hour minimum.
Schiphol to any address in Amsterdam is a fixed €90 in Business Class, €125 in the seven-seat Van Class and €140 in First Class — taxes included, per car, with the flight tracked and a chauffeur waiting inside the arrivals hall. Going back to Schiphol the fixed prices are €80, €85 and €90.
The Van Class takes up to seven passengers and seven bags in one car, with captain chairs and walk-in headroom. For a larger party dispatch stages several cars to arrive together at Paradiso, with one contact for the whole group rather than a separate booking per car.
Message dispatch on WhatsApp and the pickup time moves. It is one number, answered around the clock in English, and once a chauffeur is assigned you have his line too. There is no surge pricing at four in the morning — the fare was agreed when you booked.