All of us in the silly orange hats they were giving away at the train station.
Party boats were popular
Flea Market example
Loads of party boats
These girls were very festive dancing in their orange dresses
Queen's Day in Amsterdam:
Queen’s Day is huge holiday in the Netherlands. Officially, it is the celebration of the Queen’s birthday. The first Queen’s birthday celebration was on August 31 for Wilhelmina. It was moved to April 30 for Queen Juliana. The current Queen, Beatrix, whose birthday is January 31, wisely choose to continue with the celebration on April 30. It is said that the weather on Queen’s Day is always beautiful. This year was no different.
While every town has Queen’s Day celebrations, Amsterdam is where the real party is. We rode the train into Amsterdam around 10:00 am thinking we would be on the early side of the party. We were wrong. The train station was a mad-house. As we left the station, there was a guy handing out bright orange hats. Orange is the official color of the Netherlands, taken from the name of the royal family, the House of Orange, even though the flag is red, white, and blue. We put on the orange hats just to keep in the spirit of things.
Our goal was to walk to Vondel Park at the far end of Amsterdam near the Rijksmuseum. We figured we would sit and have lunch quietly in the park before we worked our way back to the train station. Everything went according to plan except for the park not being quiet! I think everyone had my same idea.
The main feature of Queen’s Day is that it is a free market or a huge flea market. Anyone can sell anything on the streets that day. It’s like a city-wide garage sale. There were some large booths selling clothes and souvenir junk, but mostly there were people selling their used household goods. Some kids were out selling pop and home-made treats, too. We sampled the poffertjes or mini-pancakes slathered with butter and powdered sugar – yum!
Apparently one of the best ways to enjoy Queen’s Day is to be on a boat. The canals were choked with party boats full of people. We stood on the bridges and watched as the boats went by. With all the beer being consumed, there was the obvious problem of not having bathrooms on these boats. We laughed as we watched one guy pee into a bottle. He was trying to be subtle about it turning his back away from the other people on the boat, but I’m pretty sure about 1000 other people were watching!
Queen’s Day was definitely one of the highlights of my parents’ visit. It was something you have to experience to believe. It was sad to note that on this very festive holiday, someone tried to kill the Queen. It happened in Apeldoorn, not in Amsterdam. Some crazy guy decided to drive his car into the back of the bus carrying the Queen. He actually missed hitting the bus, but ended up killing 8 people and himself.
While every town has Queen’s Day celebrations, Amsterdam is where the real party is. We rode the train into Amsterdam around 10:00 am thinking we would be on the early side of the party. We were wrong. The train station was a mad-house. As we left the station, there was a guy handing out bright orange hats. Orange is the official color of the Netherlands, taken from the name of the royal family, the House of Orange, even though the flag is red, white, and blue. We put on the orange hats just to keep in the spirit of things.
Our goal was to walk to Vondel Park at the far end of Amsterdam near the Rijksmuseum. We figured we would sit and have lunch quietly in the park before we worked our way back to the train station. Everything went according to plan except for the park not being quiet! I think everyone had my same idea.
The main feature of Queen’s Day is that it is a free market or a huge flea market. Anyone can sell anything on the streets that day. It’s like a city-wide garage sale. There were some large booths selling clothes and souvenir junk, but mostly there were people selling their used household goods. Some kids were out selling pop and home-made treats, too. We sampled the poffertjes or mini-pancakes slathered with butter and powdered sugar – yum!
Apparently one of the best ways to enjoy Queen’s Day is to be on a boat. The canals were choked with party boats full of people. We stood on the bridges and watched as the boats went by. With all the beer being consumed, there was the obvious problem of not having bathrooms on these boats. We laughed as we watched one guy pee into a bottle. He was trying to be subtle about it turning his back away from the other people on the boat, but I’m pretty sure about 1000 other people were watching!
Queen’s Day was definitely one of the highlights of my parents’ visit. It was something you have to experience to believe. It was sad to note that on this very festive holiday, someone tried to kill the Queen. It happened in Apeldoorn, not in Amsterdam. Some crazy guy decided to drive his car into the back of the bus carrying the Queen. He actually missed hitting the bus, but ended up killing 8 people and himself.
2 comments:
Queen's Day is definitly crazy! We did have a great time, even though we were more observers and less participants. I can't think of any festivities in our country that gather so many people into one area. Maybe there is stuff here that I haven't been to. Mom
Try Mardi Gras or Fiesta (San Antonio). They're both totally crazy.
Susan
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