AMSTERDAM — Almost every hotel room in Amsterdam is booked as the Dutch capital gears up to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Queen Beatrix’s rule.

Official festivities start on Friday night when the Queen arrives at the Nieuwe Kerk — where she was crowned 25 years ago — at 8pm for the unveiling of a stained glass jubilee window.

A special concert will be held on Dam Square from 9.30pm. More than 5,000 special guests have been invited, including Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen who will sit beside Queen Beatrix.

Official Queen’s Day activities will continue on Saturday as Beatrix visits The Hague and Scheveningen. Street parties will be held in every city and village across the nation also.

In Amsterdam, the city’s tourism bureau ATCB said in order to find hotel rooms for people wanting to celebrate Queen’s Day, bookings were being made around Schiphol Airport and in other cities.

“In the upper end of the market there might be a few rooms available for booking at the reception desk, but Amsterdam is almost completely full,” a spokeswoman said on Friday.

The extreme popularity is being attributed to the Queen Beatrix’s silver jubilee, the school holiday period and the high season of the bulb-growing region of the Netherlands.

International interest especially from Britain, Germany, Spain and France is also being reported.

Besides those staying overnight, the ATCB and the capital’s branch of the entertainment industry association KHN are also expecting a large number of day visitors.

An estimated 610,000 celebrated in Amsterdam last year as the capital was transformed into a giant flea market and a sea of orange. Some 60 percent of the visitors were from out of town.

To ward off unrest, Dutch rail NS will impose a ban on the drinking and carrying of more than one glass or tin of alcohol at stations and on trains from 7pm on Friday. The ban will be lifted at 5am on Sunday.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2005]

Subject: Dutch news