A little late for a heads-up: tomorrow is the King's Day. It's in fact his b'day. (Unlike his mum who was born in January, and her Queen's Day was on April 30th). Anyhow, this is the single-most celebrated day of the year. The party start around midnight with the King's Night and it will end with fireworks in a lot of towns and villages tomorrow around 11PM.
Some cities are already so crowded. The police asks people not to come to the town center due to the enormous amount of people roaming the streets, listening to bands, performance artists and buskers. Bars and pubs are open for 24hrs.
People dress in orange and a eat orange pastry (tasty stuff), some drink 'oranje bitter': a sort of liquor. For kids, there's the 'free market': children can sell stuff, perform with violins etc to make money for themselves. Normally, there's a good atmosphere and a lot of fun for the families. We've planned to go to a pub for a few orange drinks as well.
His b'day is conveniently situated in the 'Tulip Holiday': the 2 weeks from late April until somewhere in May. If you miss this one, then May 5th is Liberation Day. Let's call it King's Day Light. It's celebrated with free festivals in the big cities. If you want to partyyyyyy, May the 5th in the Dutch big cities is a good choice.
My oldest lives on Curaçao. He and his mates have bought tons of beer, hired a DJ and they're ready to party heavily. Mind you, the King is very popular on the Dutch Antilles!
Orange pastry called 'tompouce'
"and her Queen's Day was on April 30th"
don't forget to mention that a lot of outdated lonely traveler books are out there, so there are still some tourists ("vergistourist") dressed in orange show up on the 30th at schiphol airport expecting the day of their life!
Indeed!!! But the new date starts to sink in: yesterday I picked up my wife from the airport and we noticed quite a few tourists with orange-style details. We heard those Orange Tourists speak Spanish, English and something I couldn’t recognize.
I’m wearing my Seiko diver on an orange strap. That will do nicely. And eat a ‘tompouce’ when having coffee around 11am.
Fijne Koningsdag aan alle Nederlanders...
vooral aan hen die een republiek willen. ;)
David
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
I’m in Amsterdam & it’s nuts busy here. Such a cool vibe though
Was there over this weekend a few years back; excellent day to visit the Rijksmuseum!
Never celebrated Koningsdag / Kingsday as we moved to the US in 2000 and the King took the throne in 2013. Queensday / Kingsday is quite the spectacle, always enjoyed it. I miss eating the tompouce. We'll be visiting NL starting next week and at least one tompouce will be on the menu. With pink lace (instead of orange), unfortunately.
Je bent echt een lulOriginally Posted by dkpw
Good idea! Nothing beats a Hema* tompouce. Given your avatar being the Flag of Limburg**, I guess that vlaai*** is on the menu as well!
*Hema: Netherlands' most valued convenience store for everything between sausages and women's bras (no kidding). 125 yrs of history, only Dutch design and everything under 50 euros. Their bakery for cakes and tompouce is the best. Everybody here loves Hema.
**Limburg: the Southernmost province of the Netherlands, with -hands down- the most beautiful town of the country: Maastricht. Don't go to Amsterdam. Just go to Maastricht. Much nicer.
***Vlaai: a pastry/cake only in Limburg. Mixed fresh fruit vlaai,, strawberries vlaai, rice vlaai, apple crumble vlaai... You name it: it's made into a wonderfully tasting vlaai.
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