Amsterdam - What's Up with Queen's Day?
 

On April 30th - every year but Apr 30th is a Sunday - does that mean Queen's Day is on May 1 - no that's a holiday all over Europe - is it on 29th?

Anyway Queen's Day in Amsterdam was the most lively, colorful and crowded city-wide festival i've ever been to in four decades of European travel.

Oh that i could be in Amsterdam on Queen's Day - whenever it is this year!

April 30th is a Friday this year Pal.

If it falls on a Sunday then April 29th is used instead - can't go giving folks another day off now can they.

Next year really stinks as far as days off go with Christmas, New Year and Koninginnedag falling in the weekends. So no compensating days. :(

Some folks do get an extra day this year on May 5th (Liberation Day)but it depends on your employer. It used be a day off for everyone once every 5 years, bt that was changed, so now many people do not have the day off, whilst public workers get it off every year. I mean they work so hard all year, poor dears need that extra day ;).

Oh and May 1st is NOT a holiday in the Netherlands.

May 1 not a holiday - do the Dutch do a Labor Day or Workers Day similar to May 1?

dank u very wel!

No no labour day here.

We get New Years Day, Easter Monday, Koninginnedag, Ascension Day, Whit Monday and two days at Christmas. That's it.

And as I said if they fall on a weekend tough.

For the memories Pal, my photos of Q Day 2008 http://tinyurl.com/yln3hrp.

Spaarne-

Those photos of yours were the best!! You managed to capture the scenes perfectly and thank you for the memories. I found it incredible that Amsterdam could be packed with a million party'ers and still get along as well as they do. That being said, some of those compacted crowds can get overwhelming in the narrow streets. I especially appreciated the photos of all the junque being sold/exchanged in the ever present yard sales. And the canals and boats--what a party! Thanks again.

Wow -
Spaarne - great photos bringing back great memories

Queen's Day as shown in the first photo is also one huge garage sale/flea market where anyone can pick a spot (and many stake out the better spots the night before i believe) and sell anything they want - only on this day.

And a later picture of all the boat traffic on the canals - i wonder how many of those drunks get fall off the boat and into the canals! I fondly remember bands on boats - jazz bands especially and beer-hall music.

thanks for sharing the photos and also of the Haarlem train station - i stayed in Haarlem for a week in Jan and went to the station everyday from my B&B - 15-minute walk.

But those taking trains into Queen's Day beware - in recent years trains have been cut off totally at times from Centraal Station due to horrendous overcrowding getting off trains - i am surprised Spaarne could take the train - maybe they have solved the dangerous mob scenes that i saw in the station a few years back on Queen's Day?

There are less people who go into Amsterdam nowadays, after one particularly bad year.
However because of the building work at Centraal NS is advising people to get off at Amstel and walk in.

Of course the street cleaners are on strike tomorrow for the day so people are being given orange rubbish bags and are being asked to help clean up.
The street cleansers are planning to go on strike again around the start of the Giro d'Italia a week later as they think it will have more impact, and not lose them public support.

Street cleaners in other cities are also striking - some for a longer period.

It would be fitting IMO if the streeet cleaners struck on May 1 - the International Workers Day!

Regarding the train from Haarlem, it was packed. In Haarlem station the stairwell to the platform was controlled and only a few people at a time were allowed up the steps. When we got to the platform it was mobbed like I had never seen it. Then the train came in, already fully loaded. Somehow we squeezed on. It was SRO, chest to chest. A drunk punk and his girl standing next to me were drinking some booze from a bottle and dropped the empty bottle on the floor in front of the door. I mentioned to him that someone could step on that and fall. He picked it up and then dropped it on the tracks as the door opened in Amsterdam. You have an idea of the crowd that got off the train from my photo in Amsterdam station.

On Queen's Day about ten years ago I was on the Damrak, the boulevard from the station to the Dam. That street is as wide as a football field. It was packed so bad that I could not move. I got worried. I do not like confined spaces. Eventually I worked my way out and found a beer.

For those going, you should already be there! The city publishes a map/guide to events. Try to help them drain the breweries. No chance.

Ah wish i were in Amsterdam today, Queen's Day!

You'd be wet if you were Palenque. We've had a lot of rain overnight and this morning, though it is clearing up now. And it is considerably cooler than yesterday - 24C and sun yesterday, 12C and wet today :(.

My son was part of the team doing the TV coverage of the Queen visiting Zeeland today. They all got soaked, though the sun came out later. No sign of sun here yet though.

The trains are now stopped in both Amsterdam and Haarlem due to people walking on the lines.
In Amsterdam people aren't bothering to use the tunnels but are going over the lines at Centraal, and in Haarlem it is very busy, partly due to Amsterdam CS being closed, but also just the sheer volume of people, also on the lines there too.

In past years at least Thalys trains have terminated at Schiphol and passengers took local trains to Station Zuid-WTC or Station RAI - like Sparrne i was in Centraal Station one Queen's Day on a train and saw people pouring out of a train on the opposite track - the stream of mainly young folks, many carrying cases of beer, never stopped - an incredible number poured out and then they all got bottled up at the stairs and escalators going down to the exits so i can see why they may just make their ways over the tracks.
All trains were soon stopped afterward.
It was rather exciting to see it all - a sea of orange with of course everyone wearing orange shirts and many orange hats.

Sitting in our room at Stempels in Haarlem at the epicenter of activity. Wish I could post a soundtrack of the rave going on outside which is causing the hotel to literally throb. DH, who was out making a video, says there are easily six different groups within 400 ft of our room pounding out the sound. I'm afraid to ask what time the action stops.

We went to Keukenhof today on the bus. The day was rainy when we started out, but the weather improved during the day. The flowers were awesome, in the truest sense of the word. We returned to Haarlem about 5:00 pm, and joined in the festivities a while.

We did see a crush of people dashing for an empty bus at the Haarlem station. The police were in hot pursuit in an attempt to keep the crowd safe. We avoided the situation by ducking through the bicycle garage.

Things will be quiet by midnight Betsy. Usually fireworks at about 11, and any outside music must stop by midnight (I think, it does depend a bit on the gemeente's own rules).

Of course the pubs will be open longer so there will still be plenty of people about making some noise.

I was in Haarlem on New Years Eve and it was bombastic from early afternoon to well after midnight - an increasingly crescendo of really loud fireworks coming from every quarter - never seen anything like it - the Dutch do like to party and get a little rowdy it seems and i love it.

Just had a look at the Homepage for the Haarlem Oranjevereniging and it says the noise stops at 10pm by you - all the festivities are based around the St Bavo.

Thanks folks! If you know Stempels, you know it's just across the street from the beautiful St. Bavo (and it's in-house gelateria), so we're in the heart of the activities. The front desk said the music must stop by 23:00. The late-night pub crawlers won't bother us, but the pounding beat probably would prevent any chance of sleep.

You're right on Palenque: It's rowdy and a lot of fun.

My B&B was also very close to St Bavo's! I'll have to look up Stempels when i return next year, hopefully to Haarlem, which i use as a base and pay only 32 euros for a nice B&B with huge breakfast in a quiet, normally, part of town.

Um Palenque, would you consider giving us the name of your B&B? Though it's not near St. Bavo, is it the same one as spaarne uses?

BTW spaarne, I thought of you as we walked along your user name river. We walked over the white draw bridge, out to the windmill and back.

We wanted to have dinner at Spaarne 66 tonight, but it was closed all day. We ended up at Dijkers, which was pretty good.

Note: The phrase in my post above should read "its in-house gelateria" (built right into the side of the church).

Our town's party is taking place over a Km from my house and I can hear the "music" from here - through double glazed windows. If I move to another room in the house I can hear the party in the next town over too.

Fireworks due in 10 minutes and everything must be quiet by midnight - in theory at least.

Breaking news! This just in from my friend Paula in Haarlem:
<i>
Haarlem, 30 April 2010

Well, it was a cold Queens day! It started with a drizzle. The sun came out in the afternoon but the wind was not that pleasant.
When I started working this morning at 8, I noticed already a lot of people sitting and waiting for the first buyers. Brrrr!!

Yesterday was so nice and warm! I even bought some plants for the yard and cleaned up there a bit. I noticed that there are a lot of salamanders in the pond!! Now that it gets warmer there seems to be a boom of those creatures!

John and I went downtown at about 14.30 when the sun was shining and it was way more pleasant to be outside. Haarlem gets a more and more interesting Queensday with music, beer and a lot of frei markt stuff. Not as exciting as Amsterdam of course but more relaxed and less crowded. And beside, some as###les messed up the train schedules going to Amsterdam by misusing the emergency brakes of some incoming and outgoing trains. That meant that there was no train traffic for hours because people climbed out of the train and walked on the tracks to get to Amsterdam CS. So the NS had to close down all the train traffic to prevent people from being hit by a train. Next year one hundred of mongols will misuse the brakes, that's FUN you know, and people will stop going to Amsterdam for Queensday. That are the Dutchies!
We had some beers in the center of Haarlem. I bought some books and a skirt I couldn't live without :)</i>

This is bizarre. I think I'll retire to Haarlem for future Queen's Days. They do it pretty good there, as demonstrated in the last photo of my series.

Betsy,
That bridge is named the Gravestenenbrug. I lived right in front of it in the ground floor apartment of Spaarne 2. I think that this bridge, petite as it is, is more scenic than the more famous and photographed Magerebrug, "Skinny Bridge" in Amsterdam.

Don't forget the Tyler's Museum and the Frans Hals Museum. Walk through the RLD. It is very mild compared to Amsterdam.

hetismij,
Don't you just love it? Think, you have to wait 364 days for this to come again. The Dutch are so stressed that they need this day to blow off some steam.

Palenque,
See you on the Grote Markt, Q Day 2011? Do you live in the state between the waters?

Talking about Queen's Day: this is really funny: a top 10 of junk bought at the flea market-madness across the Netherlands:

http://www.dutchimage.nl/fotoweb/htm...choftheday.fwx

The newsletters of Dutch Image are recommended for foreigners in Holland by the way. It's nice to learn a thing or two about those weird dutch fooks.