With the academic year drawing to a close, it’s time to enjoy some summer fun in Holland. Here are some tips for the best places and festivals to visit, where you relax, play sports, dance, swing and laugh until it hurts.
Delen
Den Haag is home to some of the Randstad’s most beautiful parks, places where you can relax and enjoy the summer breeze, picnic with friends and stroll through beautiful gardens. Top of list are the Clingendeal and Westerbroek Parks. In Park Clingendeal, be sure to visit the Sterrebos, a dark, dense wood filled with blossoming rhododendrons, and the picturesque Japanese Garden, with its gazebo, ponds and water basins. If you love roses, be sure to visit the Rose Garden in the Westerbroek Park, where some 20,000 roses will be in bloom during the next few months. The Westerbroek Park has, in addition, extensive playing fields, ponds, an idyllic tea garden and a flower garden. Entry to these parks and gardens is free, and the Japanese Garden is open until June 9.
For those who would like to swim, play volleyball or soccer, practice to climb Mount Everest on an outdoor climbing wall and learn how to dance the Salsa, head for the Strand Aan de Maas, an artificial beach that has been created in Rotterdam near the Erasmus bridge. The beach has a Caribbean ambience and, in addition to sporting events, plays and exhibitions, DJ’s from Rotterdam’s Salsa scene will play the best Latino music. Free salsa workshops for beginners and intermediate level dancers will be held on June 10th and June 24th.
Festivals
The months of June and July are when a wide array of festivals are held throughout the country. The crÈme de la crÈme of summer festivals is the Holland Festival, which runs from June 4-27. This festival offers a variety of cultural happenings of high artistic quality and with an international dimension, including theatre, music, dance, opera, drama, film and pop music, in traditional as well as experimental settings. The festival is based in and around Amsterdam’s Leidseplein. Students who show their campus card can attend every performance for only €10.
If you want to brag to your friends back home that you went to the largest free pop festival in Europe, if not the world, check out Parkpop in Den Haag on June 27th. Feature performances will be by The League of XO (Extra Ordinary) Gentlemen, headed by the former frontman of the Urban Dance Squad, Rudeboy; the band Aretuska from Sicily, which is famous for its blend of rock’n’steady, ska, soul, funk, jazz and Mediterranean melodies; Steel Pulse, one of the most celebrated reggae bands in Britain; and ‘Outlandish’, a Danish immigrant group mixing Arabic pop, Indian soundtracks and Latin American rhythms.
On July 4th, head for Metropolis Festival Rotterdam, a festival offering more than 20 national and international acts. This festival aims to be a launching pad for up and coming bands, and past performers who were given a chance to shine on the festival’s stage include such chart-topping bands as the Smashing Pumpkins, The Prodigy and the Wu Tang Clan. Admission is free.
Lovers of dance shouldn’t miss the Julidans (July Dance) festival held at Amsterdam’s Leidseplein. The festival, which runs from July 5-17, features the works of leading international choreographers and new genres in contemporary dance, including the works of artists such as Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, Marie Chouinard, Jan Fabre, Robyn Orlin, Thomas Hauert and Russell Maliphant. Admission for festival performances ranges from free to €20 maximum.
Nightlife
If you want to laugh so much that it starts to hurt, go listen to top of the rank comedians, like Adam Bloom and Arj Barker, at the ‘Toomler’, from July 7-14, or visit the world-famous Leidseplein comedic group ‘Boom Chicago’ in Amsterdam. The ‘Boom Chicago’ comedians present a blend of scripted material, improvised scenes and songs, and the program for the coming two months will give you the answer to the question: ‘Why Aren’t You Happy Yet?, although you, seemingly, have everything you want’. Entry is €20. If you like to dance to music from the ‘70s to the present, don’t miss the Decennium Dance Night at Disco Calypso, which is one of Rotterdam’s hottest nightspots, where for only €7 you can dance your socks off to disco, house, hip-hop, rock, soul and funk.
With the academic year drawing to a close, it’s time to enjoy some summer fun in Holland. Here are some tips for the best places and festivals to visit, where you relax, play sports, dance, swing and laugh until it hurts.
Den Haag is home to some of the Randstad’s most beautiful parks, places where you can relax and enjoy the summer breeze, picnic with friends and stroll through beautiful gardens. Top of list are the Clingendeal and Westerbroek Parks. In Park Clingendeal, be sure to visit the Sterrebos, a dark, dense wood filled with blossoming rhododendrons, and the picturesque Japanese Garden, with its gazebo, ponds and water basins. If you love roses, be sure to visit the Rose Garden in the Westerbroek Park, where some 20,000 roses will be in bloom during the next few months. The Westerbroek Park has, in addition, extensive playing fields, ponds, an idyllic tea garden and a flower garden. Entry to these parks and gardens is free, and the Japanese Garden is open until June 9.
For those who would like to swim, play volleyball or soccer, practice to climb Mount Everest on an outdoor climbing wall and learn how to dance the Salsa, head for the Strand Aan de Maas, an artificial beach that has been created in Rotterdam near the Erasmus bridge. The beach has a Caribbean ambience and, in addition to sporting events, plays and exhibitions, DJ’s from Rotterdam’s Salsa scene will play the best Latino music. Free salsa workshops for beginners and intermediate level dancers will be held on June 10th and June 24th.
Festivals
The months of June and July are when a wide array of festivals are held throughout the country. The crÈme de la crÈme of summer festivals is the Holland Festival, which runs from June 4-27. This festival offers a variety of cultural happenings of high artistic quality and with an international dimension, including theatre, music, dance, opera, drama, film and pop music, in traditional as well as experimental settings. The festival is based in and around Amsterdam’s Leidseplein. Students who show their campus card can attend every performance for only €10.
If you want to brag to your friends back home that you went to the largest free pop festival in Europe, if not the world, check out Parkpop in Den Haag on June 27th. Feature performances will be by The League of XO (Extra Ordinary) Gentlemen, headed by the former frontman of the Urban Dance Squad, Rudeboy; the band Aretuska from Sicily, which is famous for its blend of rock’n’steady, ska, soul, funk, jazz and Mediterranean melodies; Steel Pulse, one of the most celebrated reggae bands in Britain; and ‘Outlandish’, a Danish immigrant group mixing Arabic pop, Indian soundtracks and Latin American rhythms.
On July 4th, head for Metropolis Festival Rotterdam, a festival offering more than 20 national and international acts. This festival aims to be a launching pad for up and coming bands, and past performers who were given a chance to shine on the festival’s stage include such chart-topping bands as the Smashing Pumpkins, The Prodigy and the Wu Tang Clan. Admission is free.
Lovers of dance shouldn’t miss the Julidans (July Dance) festival held at Amsterdam’s Leidseplein. The festival, which runs from July 5-17, features the works of leading international choreographers and new genres in contemporary dance, including the works of artists such as Japanese choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, Marie Chouinard, Jan Fabre, Robyn Orlin, Thomas Hauert and Russell Maliphant. Admission for festival performances ranges from free to €20 maximum.
Nightlife
If you want to laugh so much that it starts to hurt, go listen to top of the rank comedians, like Adam Bloom and Arj Barker, at the ‘Toomler’, from July 7-14, or visit the world-famous Leidseplein comedic group ‘Boom Chicago’ in Amsterdam. The ‘Boom Chicago’ comedians present a blend of scripted material, improvised scenes and songs, and the program for the coming two months will give you the answer to the question: ‘Why Aren’t You Happy Yet?, although you, seemingly, have everything you want’. Entry is €20. If you like to dance to music from the ‘70s to the present, don’t miss the Decennium Dance Night at Disco Calypso, which is one of Rotterdam’s hottest nightspots, where for only €7 you can dance your socks off to disco, house, hip-hop, rock, soul and funk.
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