Truffula

Queen's Day

travel

Before we left Australia, we signed up with the government's Smartraveller program, where you can register your trip including the locations you're planning to travel, and they will send you an email if any of the official security advisories for your selected countries get updated. So we were surprised when we got an email from them regarding the Netherlands. The Netherlands? What could possibly be the problem in the Netherlands?

It turns out there is a national holiday called Queen's Day, on Tuesday April 30, where everyone dresses up in bright orange (the colour of their royalty) and they have a big party. But this year would also be the inauguration of the new king, as Queen Beatrix had announced she would abdicate on Queen's Day (it's not called a coronation in the Netherlands; their monarchy works a bit differently than their British counterparts). And because they were getting a new king, this would be the last Queen's Day for some years— next year the festival would be called King's Day, and may even be on a different date (traditionally it is on the monarch's birthday, but Beatrix left it on her mother's birthday because the end of April is a great time of year for a big party in the Netherlands— much better than the end of winter).

That sounds like fun, we said— but it was only 5 days away. And accommodation would be impossible to find in Amsterdam. But what the hey, let's give it a go.

We sent a handful of couch requests on the Thursday before, maybe 3 or 4— our first ever, and we waited. We weren't particularly hopeful, and by Saturday we figured it probably wouldn't happen. Sunday we had given up hope. Monday we went out for a hike in a place called Müngste Brücke(?)— a beautiful valley with a stream that runs into the Wupper. We visited the bridge— the (insert record-breaking statistic here), which is currently closed for maintenance— and continued on to a cute little village (?) with a little castle on the hilltop, overlooking the valley below, for a tasty lunch. And while we were there, one of our couch requests was accepted.

We frantically tried to find the fastest bus we could back to Wuppertal. There was a train leaving for Amsterdam that night, and we just might make it. The bus we chose took us to the wrong end of the city, and we had to ride almost the whole length of the Schwebebahn to get back to Martha's. By the time we arrived, it was too late to make the train. But there was an early train the next morning. We booked that one.

The Netherlands is quite a flat country. Much of it is reclaimed land, so for a place that used to be covered with water, flatness kind of follows. We were amazed at how short the trip was to Amsterdam, basically to cross most of the country— only a few hours, and much of that was getting from Wuppertal to Cologne to the border. It's not so big, and the trains are fast. We saw a lot of wind farms on the way, as well as the occasional traditional windmill, and started to see the changes in architecture from the typical German houses.

We arrived in Amsterdam Central Station at around 9:40am, only to find the station lockers were closed for security reasons. The only other lockers we knew were open were at the airport, and that was a one hour round trip which we would have to take twice. So we took our luggage with us to the first part of the festivities, which started at 10. Fortunately, a bit later, we managed to get our gear held at a hostel for a small fee— worth every penny. Or should I say, every Euro cent.

Dutch people are crazy. At least on Queen's Day. There were thousands of them filling the Palace Square during the initial ceremony, which was actually taking place inside the parliament building adjacent the square, but was all shown on an enormous screen. The whole city was decked out in regalia— flags and banners and balloons and things, either in bright orange or in the national colours of red white and blue, or a combination of both— all celebrating both the incoming king and the outgoing queen. And from what we could gather, they're both well respected by all but a vocal minority who had their own little part of the city designated for their anti-monarchy protest. But the general feeling seems to be that even if they switched from a bloodline monarchy to an elected president, the whole thing would still cost the state just as much, and at this stage the monarchs are apparently doing a good job. The new king even likes pils beer (as opposed to the fancier export stuff), which bodes well with the people.

The best way to describe Queen's Day is to say that the whole inner city of Amsterdam becomes a street party. Literally. The city becomes car-free and tram-free, and everywhere you go there are people eating, drinking, selling various things to eat and drink (including pop-up beer stalls where a random guy will have a carton or two of Heineken to sell), other little market stalls, bands and Brazilian drumming teams. The city is filled with canals which are filled with boats filled with people filled with beer. It is a lot of fun. There were a few official events for the inauguration— signing of documents, some kind of church service, pledges by all the politicians to serve the king (with or without the optional "with God's help" bit), waving on the balcony (we couldn't quite see the balcony from where we were but we caught a glimpse of the procession from the church back to the palace— ooh!) and in the afternoon, the Royal Boat Parade, where the king and his party cruise around the harbour briefly in a royal canal boat. We were on the waterfront near the train station, where, for some strange reason, there were black sheets of polyethylene sheeting on temporary fencing which made it hard for people to see without climbing on some piece of street furniture. That is, until people started spontaneously ripping off the plastic sheeting. Power to the people!