Koninginnedag - Wave Your Loyal Colours!

I could never understand the hoopla about the Queen's Day in Holland.

It boils down to throngs of bored farmers flocking to Asmterdam to get pissed on ridiculously overpriced Heineken while Amsterdammers try to peddle all kinds of fifth-hand crap on the streets in a sort of citywide junk sale. There are some miserly Dutch bands no one knows about playing here and there, but all in all it's about expensive booze, booze-inflated nationalism and MOUNTAINS of trash sold - or abandoned if unsold - in the streets. There're no carnival or floats or anything like that.

For lovely carnivals, head out south of the Maas where the Catholic folks live. They do have nice - colourful and meaningful - festivals there, just not in the North where the unhappy buttoned-up Calvinist spirit tries to have fun and stops one step short of it, inebriating itself out of guilt and fear of eternal damnation instead.