News of: Monday, May 02 2005,
Queensday 2005 has been a nice day, according to all parties involved.
Some 400,000 people visited Amsterdam on April 30, compared to 500,000 last year.
All hotels and apartments were fully booked, the tourist office had to resort to accommodation outside Amsterdam.
The police reported there were hardly any problems, and the Dutch Railways (NS) transported some 180,000 to Amsterdam. A few years ago, riots broke out near the Central Station as the train system couldn't cope with the number of travellers, and because of abuse of the emergency brakes train services were disrupted. Since then a number of measures have been taken to avoid too large crowds at Central Station.
This year, so-called 'greencups' were introduced. They are plastic 'glasses', which people could buy for 1 Euro, which you get back if you return the greencup at the bar. This has been a big success in keeping down the number of broken glasses in the streets. Nonetheless, city cleaners have indicated more rubbish than last year had to removed.
The busiest places were the concert on Museumplein (150,000 spectators) and the Vondelpark, traditionally reserved for children on Queensday.
