Queen's Day is supposed to be a celebration of the Queen's Birthday, but it's not, instead, it's a celebration of the Queen Mother's Birthday. When the current Queen (Beatrix) came to the throne, she decided to keep Queen's Day in April as her birthday was in January when the weather isn't really as good. What a good decision that turned out to be! Both last night and today have been lovely and provided the perfect opportunity for the whole of Utrecht to come out and have a Really Good Time.
There are essentially three parts to Queen's Day celebration: (a) The vrijmarkt (free market), (b) the live music, and (c) the atmosphere. On Queen's Day all trading restrictions are lifted, and the streets turn into a giant flea market with people putting out stalls selling everything and anything. There were stalls selling everything from skis to broken computers, from cutlery to LPs etc. If you wanted something obscure the chances are you'd find it. Children put on performances (musical and otherwise - one very enterprising kid was selling time on his megaphone), street vendors sell all sorts of food, and there's just a general carnival feeling to the whole place.
Unfortunately I didn't see anything that took my fancy (apart from a rather battered looking canoe), put I was gifted an orange hair-piece to make up for my distinct lack of orange clothing. Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands y'see, and some people really took the link to heart.
Alongside all of this, just about every square of wide street that was big enough played host to a music stage playing all sorts of music. The music was bigger last night, but it was still pulling in the crowds today, and it was fantastic having a constant sound of music in the background wherever you went in the city from the centre out into the residential vrijmarkt.
But the best thing has to be the atmosphere in the city. Everyone is there to have a good time, and with the weather, the music and the colour, Utrecht really came alive. People always say things like the atmosphere was electric, or there was a buzz in the air - but it's true, there really was. But there was no loutish behaviour either - the police were passive last night and today, and I can't imagine that being the case if something similar was tried in the UK. Utrecht can be a little quiet sometimes, but not today.
Apparently Amsterdam on Queen's Day is a completely different experience altogether - they expect about 2 million people to descend for the day - so it would have been interesting to see how much more crowded it was there, but Utrecht was great. It's left the city in a hell of a state mind, but I shalln't worry about that as at 4am tomorrow morning I'm leaving it all behind to visit Greece to see Cecily, so I imagine that by the time I get back, it'll be as if it all never happened. Which, in a way, will be a shame.
1 comment:
Wow that all looks jolly good fun!
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