Hotel near Schiphol

Six miles from Schiphol Airport, near Amsterdam, I spent a night in Hotel Zwanenburg (Olmenlaan 52, 1161 JX Zwanenburg, The Netherlands; phone 31 20 497 80 20) on Sept. 28, 2011.

The hotel is convenient to the center of Zwanenburg, for restaurants and a supermarket. It is also close to bus service to Amsterdam (20 minutes away), and it runs a free airport shuttle from 5:30 a.m. to midnight. On arrival, I contacted the hotel and was picked up at bus stop B14.

When I arrived, the owner cautioned me that the planes get quite noisy in the morning, starting at 6 a.m., so sleeping in might be a problem, but as I was up at 5:30 to catch my flight, I missed any early air traffic noise. Schiphol’s air traffic peaks between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

This is a small, three-story, three-star hotel. No elevator. For €69 (near $90), it was very good value. The staff was very pleasant. I left too early to have the eight-euro breakfast, which starts at 6 a.m.

THERESA LYNAM
Vancouver, WA