While I was in Cuba in March I told a Dutch dude I met there that I was going to the Netherlands on my next trip. He told me I should definitely stay in Amsterdam through the 27^th, the King's Day national holiday. I had already booked my flight to Amsterdam but not my flight from Amsterdam to Bordeaux. I somewhat had April 26^th in mind, but decided to book it instead for the 28^th so I would still be in Amsterdam for Koningsdag.

The tradition of the monarch’s birthday as a national holiday in the Netherlands dates only back to the late 1800s . Since the Netherlands had queens rather than kings for over a century, the holiday was known as Queen’s Day until 2014 after Queen Beatrix abdicated in favor of her some Willem Alexander. That shifted the date of the holiday by a few days. Koningsdag should not be confused with Konijnsdag, which would be rabbit’s day.

Koningsdag is, of course, celebrated throughout the country but the biggest events are in Amsterdam. These include a big public concert which until recently was held on the Museumplein. I think it was shifted somewhere outside the city center this year because there was little activity on the Museumplein near my hostel. Another tradition is the Vrijmarkt. On King’s Day things can be bought and sold without a sales tax being collected on the items, so lots of people put their old stuff for sale on sheets out on the sidewalks in what becomes like a huge flea market. The national color of the Netherlands is orange after the royal family’s House of Orange, so a kind of orange madness ensues with people dressing up in orange, dying their hair orange, wearing orange wigs, etc. The party starts the night before and lasts through the night and into the day itself, but all official events end by 10:00 P.M. on the holiday.

Amsterdam has only about 800,000 people with its city limits, although a few million in the metro area. On King’s Day over a million people from elsewhere flood into the city every year . The center city and canal ring around it become an enormous pedestrian zone as public transportation is discontinued in the city center and motor vehicles except for emergency services are banned. The crush of people wandering around is such that even bicycles are not of much use. The canals are usually filled with tourist boats cruising around, but on King’s Day the tour boats don’t run and instead the canals become a vast armada of party boats filled with drunken revelers.

I’ve gotten to an age where I’m not much of partier anymore so didn’t stay out late either on Koningsnacht or Koningsdag. Most tourist attractions in Amsterdam are closed on the holiday, so a visitor in town has little choice but to join in the general revelry. I got what’s for me an unusually late start around 11:00 and started wandering the streets of Amsterdam with no specific agenda other than to check out what was going on, a winding path that took me all around the Jordaan, the canal circle, and the city center over about eight hours and at least half a dozen Heinekens. Other than huge crowds of people in town, there didn’t seem to be much that was officially organized. Some bands and performers set up at various places or marched through town. Some restaurants, bars, and nightclubs set up stands outside their establishments where revelers gathered.

I like to say that drunk people aren’t a lot of fun to be around unless you’re drunk yourself. Maybe the Heinekens weren’t strong enough for me, because somehow the crowds of ever more inebriated people just didn’t seem like all that much fun after a while. I had tentatively planned to stay out quite late at least one night in Amsterdam but ended up heading back to my hostel and calling it a night in the early evening. I’m glad I experienced Koningsdag, but as an outsider in town traveling solo and not knowing anyone here, I didn’t feel like I could fully join in in the spectacle. Maybe if I had been drinking something stronger than Heineken it might have been different.