Koninginnedag

According to Wikipedia, Koninginnedag (Queen's Day) was originally celebrated on the queen's birthday. But that's in February and since the weather is so much nicer in late April, it's now celebrated on April 30th. Although the big celebration is in Amsterdam, every town has their own festivities. So we stayed home this year for Queen's Day and enjoyed the local offerings.

April 30 fell on Saturday this year, so our Queen's Day started at the weekly Saturday market. The market includes produce, clothing and textiles, as well as flowers, sausage, fish (fresh, smoked and fried) and of course cheese. This week our purchases included a scarf, some sausages, 2 kilos of grape tomatoes and a 5 kilo bag of assorted fruit. We love these bags of fruit - for €5 (about US$7) we got a pineapple, a coconut, a bunch of bananas, and about a kilo each of apples, pears and oranges.

In the afternoon there was a fun fair for families in the park adjacent to the Saturday market. There were inflatable bounce houses for young children, as well as crown making and other crafts. Beer was on sale for the parents, and fruit was on sale for everyone. It looked like great family fun.

In the evening, there were two separate public celebrations in downtown Venlo. For the older generation, there was a tattoo featuring the Joeks-Jagers ("Joke Hunters") in the same square I mentioned in Thursday's post. In addition to the tables that fill one side of the square, there was a bandstand set up in front the the old city hall, and next to that were several WWII-era trucks brought out for the big day. Crowds of spectators (including us) lined up along both open sides of the square. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of room for the performers!

Just before 8 o'clock, we heard a drum corps approaching. Spectators at one corner of the square parted like the Red Sea, and a drum major marched in, followed by about eight drummers. They drummed and precision marched their way around the square a couple times, and then marched out again. It sounded great but our kids weren't impressed - they took off for the other celebration immediately.

The crowd of mostly older folks continued to wait so Tim and I waited too, and our patience was rewarded. Within 5 minutes, the drum major was back, followed this time by a full marching band with reinforced drum corps of at least 15. They made an impressive noise in the cobblestone square surrounded on all sides by stone and brick buildings! Even more impressive was the way they were able to march in various formations around the square - which was about the size of a baseball diamond's infield. We enjoyed more than an hour of music before they marched out of the square. I recognized just one tune - Sentimental Journey - but enjoyed them all.

Heading home, we stopped by the other celebration, in the same park as the family celebration earlier in the day. The crowd was much younger than the tattoo audience, and security guards were searching bags on the way in. We listened to a few minutes of techno-pop while we watched the light show, but were happy to head home to watch a movie as our Queen's Day finale.

Enjoy a taste of the tattoo on YouTube: