Patricia, romantic company from the Jordaan

The Jordaan was built for people who walk slowly, and Patricia walks slowly. Its short streets, leaning houses and hidden courtyards suit a woman who paints in watercolour and stops in front of secondhand bookshops, and she can find three of them between the Westerkerk and the Noordermarkt without appearing to try. If your hotel is anywhere near the canal ring, she arrives having already had a small adventure on the way.

She is 28, 172 centimetres and slim, with long auburn brown hair and brown eyes, and a soft romantic bohemian style, loose fabrics and warm tones rather than anything sharp. Gentle is the immediate impression and attentive is the lasting one; she listens closely, remembers what matters to you, and returns to it later in the evening without making a point of the fact.

Film noir is the unexpected part of her. She loves the genre properly, the shadows and the doomed decisions and the dialogue, and Danielle is the one who will sit up until two arguing about which of them is overrated. Bookshops are shared ground with Violetta, who has the same weakness for buying more than she can carry home.

The Jordaan is her own district, a few minutes from the canal hotels and a short ride to anywhere else in the city. She talks in English, quietly and thoughtfully. Patricia is the companion for a slow dinner and a longer conversation, for the night when you want the city to feel like somewhere you live rather than somewhere you landed a few hours ago. She paints on trips too, small sheets done in hotel rooms, and she has a shoebox of Amsterdam in watercolour that nobody outside her flat has seen.

Rain helps, which is not a thing most people say about Amsterdam. Patricia walks slowly by nature, and the Jordaan in bad weather is exactly her kind of evening, short streets, leaning houses, three secondhand bookshops between the Westerkerk and the Noordermarkt.

She reaches your hotel having already had a minor adventure en route, and probably carrying more books than she can sensibly get home. Dinner is long and quiet, somewhere with candles and no music, and she listens closely enough to come back an hour later to the thing that actually mattered to you. Film noir is the surprise, loved properly, all shadows and doomed decisions, and she will sit up happily arguing about which of the famous ones is overrated.