Queen’s Day 2008

Queen’s Day 2008

by ChrisGeary.com

If you only visit Amsterdam once in your life, make sure your visit coincides with 30th April. “Koninginnedag” or Queen’s Day is the annual Dutch national holiday in honour of the late Queen Juliana’s birthday. On Queen’s Day there are celebrations throughout the Netherlands. However, the most popular destination is Amsterdam where up to two million people go crazy in what is said to be one of the world’s largest street parties.

Everyone wears orange – the colour of the royal house, and it is impossible to be in a bad mood dressed as a Satsuma. Trading laws are lifted for the day so anyone can sell whatever they want on the street, the whole place becomes the most outrageous flea-market. Music pumps out of sound systems and stages spring up through the city playing jazz, classical music and the latest dance tunes. The canals heave with party boats whizzing around with mass’s of orange balloons blowing off them in the wind.