Expectations when dressing in a Dutch hotel room (no curtains)
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 19 Jul, 2023
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I totally agree with Willeke answer.
However I would add, in the unusual event that your room really has no mean to avoid people looking in, that you should ask the Hotel to provide a movable curtain (or some other similar contraption) to allow you to change comfortably while you are in the bedroom without forfeiting your privacy.
In addition to the other answers, it is very much a matter of context.
Like Willeke said, it is very common to have no curtains in a living room or study, even in the evening when the interior is clearly visible from outside.
As for other parts of the house it will also depend a lot on how high up you are and where.
I’m Dutch and now live in a residential area where neighbours keep an eye on each other.
When it’s dark outside I shower with the lights off, the bathroom window is matted so my silhouette would be visible otherwise and the bathroom is on the first floor.
When we lived in Amsterdam we were on the 4th floor with the next window at a distance and I did not bother to close the curtains when changing clothes. If passers by want to strain their necks, it is their business.
As aside note, the open curtains policy seems to affect what is shown through the window. Living rooms tend to be really tidy and stylized. And people tend to be dressed nicely around the house, not just outside. And when they do something out of the ordinary (like have a beautician treatment) some seek privacy in an upstairs room.
All summed up, there is likely to be some kind of curtain or shutter when the hotel room is easily looked into. But if you cannot find it, it will not get you into trouble.
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Do what you feel comfortable with. You are extremely unlikely to get arrested for this, and should it come to this, you can explain the curtain situation and the hotel will be in trouble.
I have stayed in Dutch hotels, BTW. They do have curtains.
Living in the Netherlands (and being Dutch) I would expect a hotel in the Netherlands to have curtains or an other way to keep people from looking in if there is any spot from which to look into the room.
So I would ask the front desk if there is a smart way to close curtains, blinds or something to close out the people possibly looking in. (These days it can be a switch next to the window or even anywhere in the room, including on a remote, that does something electric.)
If there is no such way, the polite way is not to change in view of the window and to keep the lights out when doing things others should not see.
But it is up to the possibly lookers in to also not to stare into the window trying to see every little bit.
I have slept for years in a room where there was matting for the windows, which would obscure the view of the window unless there was light on the inside but dark on the outside. Knowing that I did never show myself nude if there was light on inside. (No apartments near, only a view from lower down from which I was invisible on the bed.) I would not accept a hotel room without curtains in a city situation where people can look in from homes or even the street.
Open curtains in Dutch windows, or no curtains in living room windows are the norm. But ‘no curtains’ in bedrooms is certainly not the norm.
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