Willem-Alexander now King of The Netherlands

Willem -Alexander now King of The Netherlands

By a simple signature from his mother, Queen Beatrix, under an abdication declaration, Willem-Alexander became King of the Netherlands in the Amsterdam Royal Dam Palace today at approximately 10.35 hr AM local time.

Thereafter the new King will be inaugurated by swearing to be true and loyal to the Dutch Constitution before both Houses (Chambers) of Dutch Parliament.

Thereafter the two houses of Dutch Parliament will swear their loyalty to the King.

Queensday 2013: Best Whishes to King Willem-Alexander!

Actually there is no Queensday today. It is Abdication and hence Inauguration Day today.

Tooting my own Horn

On my significant other blog I’ve featured 100 chairs in celebration of Inauguration Day.

Keukenhof Opens Today – 2010 Theme From Russia with Love

Today the 2010 Keukenhof open air flower exhibition will be officially opened by Mrs Svetlana Medvedeva, wife of the President of the Russian Federation, in the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Máxima of the Netherlands.

The theme for the 2010 will be From Russia with Love.

Seven million flower bulbs have been planted in the 32 hectare park to ensure that the 2010 Keukenhof flower exhibition can be experienced in all its glory.

The park will be open to the public from Thursday 18 March up to and including Sunday 16 May 2010. When closing its gate it is expecting 850.00 visitors from all over the world will have admired it.

BTW the best time to visit it is either very early from 8.00 AM or after 3.00 PM when the buses loaded with tourists will have left. It is open till 7.30 PM, but be sure you enter before 6.00 PM when the ticket office closes.

As the Keukenhof is situated half way between Amsterdam and The Hague, you might as well consider to stay in Haagsche Suites🙂

Happy 2010 – Looking forward to 365 nights in Amsterdam Hotels

Vincent van Dijk DSC9108_lr

Happy 2010, the start of a new decade!

A new web 2.0 social media hotel review project:
Amsterdam counts 350 hotels and Vincent Van Dijk starts his dedicated blog Amsterdam Slaapt (i.e. Amsterdam Sleeps). Each day of 2010 he will tell us about his adventures in one of those 350 hotels, as each day of 2010 he will be sleeping out of his suitcase in one.

As Vincent uses to live and work in The Hague I’m really curious what his experience will be. Especially as my slogan is always: You should party in Amsterdam, but you should sleep in The Hague!

Nevertheless it is an interesting initiative which I will be following closely as he seems to plan to be reporting in Dutch only.

Here is Victor’s first Tweet as @AmsterdamSlaapt

@Amsterdam-Slaapt

“On January 1, 2010 I’ll start start the hotel project Amsterdam Sleeps in

Parkhotel Amsterdam

the stylish Parkhotel Amsterdam.

About Vincent van Dijk
Vincent van Dijk is a food and life style trend watcher and co owner of The Hague (Scheveningen) based ad agency HBMEO. He is a restaurant spotter for the Dutch Restaurant Guide SpecialBite err SpecialBite.com.

Sources in Dutch: Een jaar slapen in A’damse hotels – AT5 Nieuws and Misset Hotel.

Open – Railroad Bridge Bar with Restaurant in Amsterdam (Dutch Design 53)

Railroad Bridge Restaurant

When you are used to pottering canals in The Netherlands as I am, you know what a Railroad Bridge means: A place you usually have to wait for an awful long time. If you pass Amsterdam with a sailboat from which you cannot or don’t want to get the mast down, there is only one window to pass the railroad bridge that is located next to Amsterdam Central Station: Between 02.30 AM and 03.30 AM. You can have a pint of beer in the nearby Jordaan part of Amsterdam to have a bit fun during the waiting. If you are lucky there will be a folksinger in the café.
Open Amsterdam
Recently a railroad bridge that lost its function was permanently put in “Open” position.  Now Dutch architects have built a sort of glass conservatory on the bridge which got the combined function of a bar (café in Dutch who loaned that word from the French) with restaurant. Very aptly it was named Open

Cafe Reataurant Open Amsterdam

Via Architecten Web

Travel by Twitter: #Twitchhiker is Taking Off – First Leg #Amsterdam

the-5-stages-of-twitter-denial
By Influential Marketing Blog via Zingalism

Yesterday between noon GMT and 01.00PM the Twitchhiker project took off. Sunday 1rst of March in the evening The Twitchhiker will leave Great Britain with a ferry and he will arrive in Amsterdam at approximately 11.30hr AM in Amsterdam Central Station.

I admire the initiative and am fascinated by it.

I picked it up at the Guardian and posted about it earlier. In general the idea is that the Twitchhiker, Paul Smith, a gentlemen from Newcastle upon Tyne in North East Great Britain travels to the other side of the world solely relying on the hospitality and help of his followers on Twitter. As an aside he has decided to have Charity: Water as the beneficiary of donations which you can make at JustGiving.com/Twitchhiker. As of the moment I write this there are already donations of over UK pnd 1,800 of a targeted UK pnd 3,000.

Paul used to have a proper job in radio, but now writes about media for the Guardian, and blogs about radio, TV and tech for several other websites.

There are 5 rules to observe:

The are five rules I have to follow throughout the 30 days. Obviously I’m at liberty to bend them if certain death or amputation will otherwise occur, but I’ll do my best to stick to them. If I find myself in a situation that follows the letter of the rules but goes against their spirit, I’ll ask those following me for guidance:

I can only accept offers of travel and accommodation on Twitter, from users who are following @twitchhiker
This means if a Twitterer’s sister’s boyfriend’s father has a spare train ticket, I can’t use it; the help the person has to be a Twitter user, and they have to be able to directly action the offer of help. This may be too restrictive, but I want to draw on the support of the Twitter community, not to use Twitter as a search engine to find third party services.

I can’t make any plans further than three days in advance
It’s entirely possible that before I begin this challenge, I could have my entire route pre-determined and that would be no fun at all. So unless an offer of transport or accommodation is made within 72 hours of it being applicable, I can’t accept it. Damn.

I can only spend money on food, drink and anything that might fit in my suitcase
All travel and accommodation must be offered to me through Twitter. If I can’t, then I’m sleeping rough.

If there’s more than one offer on the table, I get to choose which I take. If there’s only one, I have to take it within 48 hours.
I’m not entirely happy about this bit. If any part of this challenge is going to see me dead in a ditch or under a patio, it’s this part.

If I’m unable to find a way to move on from a location within 48 hours, the challenge is over and I go home.
I hope my fellow Twitterers won’t let that happen.

If you follow his blog Twitchhiker you will see a description of all things involved in such adventure.

A similar experience on a one day trip is described by Guardian journalist Benji Lanyado Paris TwiTrip The Verdict who did find it a very positive experience.

See also Indie Travel Podcaster’s Interview of today.

The start was an amazing Tweetup where #twitchhiker reached no 1 hashtag status. He could choose to go to Amsterdam, London, or Paris and let the Twitterati vote:

This is the outcome of the poll:

twitchhiker-poll-1

As per my credo “You should Party in Amsterdam, but you should Sleep in The Hague” I’ve offered the Twitchhiker a night at our Haagsche Suites monday night, which he hasn’t accepted (yet?), as he has adopted the plan to go directly to Paris from Amsterdam. Apparently even without even spending a couple of hours in Amsterdam. I believe he could reach the other en of the world in 5 days….so in my view he could spend some time sleeping a bit here and there…maybe he will rethink his provisional decision and take a wiser decision on sunday.

I’ve also tried to wake up the Dutch Tourist Community to throw something in the throng, but they seem sound asleep (as usual).