Whether or not you’ve ever heard specifically of Queen’s Day in the Netherlands, chances are good that if you hear it’s one of the nation’s biggest holidays and brings out the party-hearty spirit in Amsterdam, you’ll understand that it’s a holiday worth traveling for.
The Netherlands has been celebrating Queen’s Day to mark the birthday of the reigning queen every year since 1889, but it wasn’t until 1948 that the April date was set. Now, no matter when the queen’s birthday is, Queen’s Day is on April 30th. The only exception to this rule is when April 30th falls on a Sunday, in which case Queen’s Day is celebrated on the 29th to make it a Saturday holiday.
Amsterdam has some of the biggest Queen’s Day celebrations each year, although cities throughout the Netherlands also celebrate – it is one of the Netherlands national holidays. To find out more about visiting the Dutch capital, whether you’re traveling for Queen’s Day or not, be sure to check out this Amsterdam travel guide.
>> Queen’s Day in 2011 is on Saturday, April 30.
One of the biggest holidays in the Netherlands is 
If you had unlimited time to spare in life and nothing better to do, you could spend all your waking hours exploring travel Web sites and you still wouldn’t find all of them. There are a lot of sites on the Web, some good, some bad and some somewhere in between. The challenge isn’t finding them, of course. The challenge is finding the ones that are useful and good.
To get a feel for how people in Amsterdam live head to the train station. Next door to it you will see a large parking structure. Nothing unusual in that, except this parking garage isn’t designed to house automobiles. It is a parking garage for bikes. Hundreds and hundreds of bikes all parked in an orderly and tidy fashion.
It is always interesting to see how people react to the coming of spring. Some people come out of their winter hibernation and are full of life. Others find that the sunshine and flowers are a reason to fall head over heels in love. And then there are people who wish it were dark and cloudy all year long. I actually no someone who gets very depressed with the start of spring. Strange fellow, he is, but ours is a diverse world and we all must do our best to get along.
With limited vacation days, a paucity of funds in the bank and the various responsibilities that come with life, it is sometimes difficult to travel abroad. This is a reality that has taken my nomadic instincts a lot of time to get used to, but finally I have reconciled with the notion that I can’t just quit my job every year and then travel for three months.
Any backpacker worth her weight in salt probably knows a thing or two about Holland’s crown jewel, Amsterdam. The Red Light district is well revered, the drugs are part of travel folklore, the canals are ingrained in the mind, Anne Frank’s home is a must see and a trip to the Heineken factory is a right of passage for those who like barely with their hops.
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