Celebrated on April 30th (April 29th if the 30th is a Sunday), this national holiday honors the queen’s birthday and is a way for the Dutch to express their spirit of national unity and saamhorigheid, or togetherness, by acting as crazed as they possibly can.
While Times Square goes nuts on New Year’s Eve, Rio sambas itself silly during Carnaval, New Orleans erupts in magnificent color and costumes during Mardi Gras and Munich parties hard at October beer fests, nowhere in the world are people kookier in late April than on Queen’s Day in Amsterdam.
Honoring Queen Beatrix with Dutch Culture
Observed since 1949 when beloved Dutch Queen Juliana ascended the throne after her mother Wilhelmina’s abdication, the holiday now draws some two million party-going visitors into the epicenter of Queen’s Day action annually. Although Queen Beatrix, the current ruling monarch (who succeeded Queen Juliana on her eighteenth birthday in 1980), was born on January 31, she officially celebrates her birthday on April 30, both to honor her mother and to give celebrants a better chance of sunshine for their revelry than they’d have in the Netherlands’ chilly winter.
On this spring day, Amsterdam is awash with orange-clad revelers partying in the streets, canals and bars until dawn. Similar to the action before, during and after soccer matches involving the Dutch, only on steroids during this holiday, orange balloons and flags flutter everywhere, shopkeepers display orange-themed window dressings and fountains spout orange-tinged water. Stages sprout up on open squares throughout the city, on which national radio stations erect giant, suggestive inflatables and produce live performances.
A hands-on monarch (unlike her mother), Queen Beatrix and her family typically visit several Dutch towns on Queen’s Day, an occasion for singing, folk dancing, traditional Dutch games and demonstrations of old crafts. Alas, within the ubiquitous orange-clad revelers are some inevitably dressed to impersonate the queen, not always in a kind or respectful manner.
Koninginnenach and Vrijmarkt, the Dutch “Freemarket”
In big cities throughout Holland, the action kicks off the night before Queen’s Day with Koninginnenach or Queen’s Night. Beginning in late afternoon, costumed celebrants start parading through the streets and sailing down the canals in high spirits fuelled by booze, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the latter usually with a distinctive techno-beat.
Street parties continue into the wee hours of the morning, but there’s no sleeping in the next day for those taking part in vrijmarkt, the Dutch “freemarket,” in which towns all over the country turn into giant garage sales. Thanks to a dispensation from the Dutch government, anyone can sell anything they want on the streets on this day and need not pay taxes on their sales. Such municipal goodwill inspires thousands of wannabe entrepreneurs to set up blankets in parks, on sidewalks and on roads where cars are banned on Queen’s Day. In Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, one of the celebration’s main hubs of trade, only children are allowed to hawk their wares.
For the commercially cunning Dutch, vrijmarkt is an opportunity to trade all manner of old rubbish for cash, from second-hand purses, records, instruments, toys and clothing to homemade cakes, candy and drinks. It’s also a chance for visitors to negotiate some good deals for others’ treasures. According to ING Bank, vendors raked in some 200 million Euros in 2007 trade, with approximately 1.8 million sellers making 111 Euros on average.
Dutch Food and International Delicacies
Those lucky enough to find themselves in Amsterdam on Queen’s Day can purchase all their orange garb from street stalls. As a bare minimum, most visitors pick out an outrageous orange hat and perhaps a silly boa to show their party spirit. While celebrating, no one need worry about getting thirsty or hungry, for vendors lining the canals and alleyways hawk beer, orange soda, Vietnamese spring rolls, chicken sat?, kebabs, bratwurst, sugary waffles and other Dutch food and international delicacies that send a tapestry of ethnic flavors wafting through the smoky air.
When Queen Beatrix dies or abdicates the throne to her firstborn son (one of three born to her and her late husband, Prince Claus), the hunky Prince Willem-Alexander will become King Willem IV, giving the Netherlands its first King in more than a century. If this happens on the country’s favorite national holiday, there will surely be mass oranjegekte.
Melissa Adams - Since 2007, when a trip to Amsterdam inspired my decision to rent out my home in Newport Beach, California and spend nearly half of every ...
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