Nuru massage Jordaan, from the top of a steep stair to a houseboat cabin

The quarter west of the Prinsengracht was laid out for weavers, dyers and carpenters, and its houses are narrower, lower and plainer than the merchant homes along the main ring. Visitors who stay here usually rent: a two-room flat above a gallery, a room in a guesthouse where the owner lives downstairs, a houseboat tied up along one of the side canals. None of these came with generous bathrooms. A top-floor flat may put the shower under the slope of the roof, so that only the middle of the cubicle has full standing height. A guesthouse room sometimes hides its shower behind a sliding panel in a corner of the bedroom itself. On the water, the bathroom is compact and the hot water comes from a small tank that rewards a little patience between the first shower and the last. All of this is workable for the gel, and knowing it in advance means your therapist arrives with the right number of towels and a plan for where each one goes.

Getting in, and getting the room right

The first thing to check is whether the bed and the shower share a floor. In many Jordaan houses they do not, and a staircase built at the pitch of a ship's ladder is no place to be carrying gel on bare feet. When the bathroom is a flight away, the closing rinse becomes a towel-wrapped descent taken very slowly, or the session moves to a bed on the bathroom's level, often a sofa bed pulled out in the living room and covered with the waterproof sheet. Old floorboards are the second consideration, since they are uneven and the gel turns them slick, so a line of towels runs from bed to shower before anything is poured. The third is warmth. These houses lose heat through thin glass and old frames, and a houseboat cools quickly once evening settles over the water, so switch the heating on the moment you have booked and leave it there. A houseboat has one more quirk worth knowing: the hull shifts very slightly when someone steps aboard or a barge passes, which nobody notices lying down and everyone notices standing on a wet floor, so the rinse on board is taken sitting.

Nuru massage in Jordaan, technique by technique

For nuru massage in the Jordaan the one-therapist session is the natural size, since two women and a waterproof sheet can crowd a room built for a craftsman's family. Ninety minutes suits the pace of the neighbourhood and gives the gel time to settle into its long continuous passage. Soapy is possible where there is a bathtub, which some of the larger canal-side flats keep, and it is a poor fit for the corner cubicles and houseboat showers, where there is no room to work lather across a body. Body-to-body in oil is often the wiser evening in a guesthouse room whose bathroom is out on the landing. Four-hand work needs the one generous room the flat has, usually the front room with the tall window, and it is worth describing that room when you ask. Canal flats with a separate bath are the exception worth mentioning in your message, because they open up every option on the menu. Sensual massage, slow and oil-based, fits even the tightest attic without any adjustment.

Reply, crossing and settling up

Write to us on WhatsApp and a confirmed name and time come back in roughly ten minutes; expect her on the doorstep twenty to thirty minutes on, the same window that holds for the whole centre. Send the house number, which bell to ring and, for a boat, which gangway to cross. One hour costs €180, a pair working side by side is €360 per hour, and eight hours from evening to morning are €1,250. She is paid as she comes in, with notes in any major currency, a card tapped at the door, or crypto, and every booking is for guests aged twenty-one or older.