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Queens Day

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JohnR
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Queens Day 08

  • May 30, 2008
  • Rated 5 of 5 by In your dreams from SCOTLAND, United Kingdom
My partner and I have been to Amsterdam several occasions loving every time we go and never have we had a bad hotel they have all been excellent the most recent hotel was The Albus Grand on Vizjelstrat. This was an ideal hotel situated right round the corner from the Rembrant square and Smokies!
We where here for a week arriving the Monday and from then we could see that Queens Day was going to be something special The shows where on Dam square along with street vendors and street entertainers round every corner.
The Tuesday morning we went for pancakes and a smoke then headed to vondel park and round to vangogh museum where a number of stages where being set up by 5pm that night dance music was blasting wall to wall and corner to corner right through to early hrs of the morning 4pm. I was in my element due to my love for dance tunes. By 6am the Wednesday there was stalls and street sellers on every inch of the pavements i woke up with an air horn blasting in my ear and that was with double glazing in the room. Looking out of my window roads where shut off to cars and trams every where which was good.The later the morning got crowds where gathering all over the place and the canals where a sea off orange. Cafes where really quiet which was a bonus for us and as for the drink being consumed by the dutch not one fight did we see they know how to party and behaved while full of it. Hats off to u all!! loved the full week its the only place in the world I hate leaving see u in October 08 xx

Queen's Day

  • August 2, 2003
  • Rated 3 of 5 by lizanneg from Seattle, Washington
Get out your orange ladies and gentleman and head out to the streets hoping to find the best deals on other people stuff.

Amsterdamers love to party and this is one great big party for the whole of the city, and I do believe, probably the country. I say this because it felt that the whole of the country was there. This is not a day for those who cannot handle a crowd. Orange is the color of the royals so you will also see people covered from head to toe in it. You may feel a bit awkward if you forgot your orange crown, but don't fret, there is surely a helpfull soul just waiting to sell you one.

This is the one day that everyone is allowed to haul all their old junk out onto the street and hope to sell it. Locals mark out their spots days in advance and set up as early as 6am! In my experience I saw everything from tea sets to sunglasses to (yes, this is true) a stand with four kitchen sinks!

One last necessity of the day is to enjoy Heineken . . . all day long!

So with boats cramming the canals, people cramming the streets and music playing all day long, head out and enjoy this party of all parties in Amsterdam.

From journal Living the Amsterdam Life

Editor Pick

Queens day

  • March 10, 2002
  • Rated 4 of 5 by Illion from Amsterdam, Netherlands
Queens day

Queens day, or Koninginnedag, is a national holiday. On the 30th of April, we celebrate the birthday of the queen, or actually, the queen-mum. The celebrations in Amsterdam are the biggest, though.
Don’t make any plans when visiting Amsterdam on this day. Normal life ceases completely. All offices will be closed, public transportation within the city centre grind to a hold and trainloads of visitors will flock towards the city. You won’t be able to do anything else, but that isn’t bad actually.
Celebrations start the night before as more and more people hit the streets and start partying. The general idea is that you buy a few beers from a vendor. He’s the one carrying three hundred beers with him but doesn’t seem to enjoy himself. What he is doing is in fact illegal so when a police-officer ask him what the man is doing with so much beer, the vendor will try to persuade the officer it’s all just for him. You can’t get in any trouble buying a beer from him though. After scoring a few beers, people start to wander around. Have a look around; there are parties in the street, in bars and in private homes. The later it becomes the easier it becomes to crash a party. This goes on until the break of dawn.
When day breaks, the drunks are replaced by children and entrepreneurs. All the streets in the heart of Amsterdam are transformed into a giant flee market. You could say it’s a collective yard sale. As more and more people arrive, the drunks re-emerge, only partly sobered up. If you thought it was crowded the day before, you will get a nasty surprise. Swarms of people shuffle through the clogged streets, dressed in orange, drinking beer and having plain and simple fun. Kids sell everything they can get their hands on. Parents hover over them, trying to prevent them from selling something of real value for only fifty cents. The creative ones invent nice games of skill, like whacking a table tennis ball. The participant gets a hammer and has to hit the ball when it pops out of the tube in which it is dropped. You only have to pay a guilder and when you win, you’ll get five in return. The kids always win because only drunk adults participate. In a lot of places live music is played, in even more places, DJ’s stir the crowd.
Not only the streets but the canals are clogged too. Hundreds of boats full of people partying sail the canals. They run some risk because of the extreme shortage of toilets, especially considering the enormous amount of beer being consumed. As men’s bladders fill up, the urge to relieve themselves somewhere grows. The canals are especially inviting. Unfortunately the canals are full of boats. There is a point where this isn’t an issue for a drunk any more though.

Approximately one million people visit Amsterdam during the day.

From journal An insiders view on Amsterdam

Editor Pick

Queen's Birthday Celebration

  • September 11, 2000
  • Rated 4 of 5 by JohnR from Jacksonville, Florida
Awesome. Queen Beatrix of Holland has a birthday in January, but celebrates it on April 30 (the birthday of her mother, the much loved Queen Juliana). This year the 30th was on a Sunday, so the celebration was Saturday. A couple hundred thousand extra people crowded into central Amsterdam during this day. Every major, and a few minor, streets were lined with vendors selling everything under the sun. People were dressed up in orange gear (after the House of Orange), and wore funky, wild, orange and purple hats. Public transport grinds to a halt on this day, except for the canal boats. Even the venerable trams do not run in the inner city. It is like a mini mardi gras which lasts only one day, and must be experienced at least once in a lifetime. We are going to do it again in a couple of years.

From journal Amsterdam for the Queen's Birthday

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