The Fourth and Fifth of May, Two Different Days

Visitors who come to Amsterdam in early May sometimes arrive without knowing that the fourth and fifth of the month mean something particular to the country. They are two days with very different moods, and each has a small bearing on the hour a booking should be fixed for. Neither is a peak date, and neither changes the rules. But a visitor who knows what happens on them will plan a better evening.

The fourth of May: remembrance

On the evening of the fourth, the Netherlands remembers those who died in war and in peacekeeping since the Second World War. At eight o'clock the country falls silent for two minutes. Traffic stops, trams halt, and people in the street stand still. In the centre, a national ceremony takes place, and crowds gather for it. Streets around it are closed for a time, and the atmosphere across the city in the early evening is quiet and serious.

For a booking, the practical advice is simple: do not fix an arrival for around eight on the fourth. The two minutes themselves are short, but the ceremony and the closures around it affect the half hour on either side. An arrival before half past seven or after half past eight avoids the question entirely. It is also a matter of courtesy. A visitor who is aware of the silence and plans around it is more welcome in any city than one who is not.

The fifth of May: liberation

The fifth is Liberation Day, and its mood is the opposite. Free open-air music festivals take place in parks and squares, with crowds out from the afternoon and a relaxed, celebratory feeling in the streets. It is a national holiday, although not everyone has the day off work. Either way, the centre and the parks are busy in the daytime and into the early evening.

The festival crowds are mostly local, spread across several sites, and they disperse in the evening. The late evening of the fifth is a calm and easy time for a booking. A visitor who spends the afternoon at one of the festivals and comes back to the hotel at seven or eight will find an hour at nine or ten straightforward to fix.

The rules on both days

Neither day is peak. A returning client writing on the day for one or two hours at a city address pays the whole fee at the door. A first booking, a booking fixed more than twenty-four hours ahead, an overnight, two therapists at once, three hours or more, or a room at a Schiphol hotel carries half ahead, as on any date. The arrival window for a same-day booking in the central districts stays at forty to sixty minutes from confirmation, and the reply will not confirm an arrival for a time that falls into the ceremony closures.

A week after King's Day

The fourth and fifth fall a week after King's Day, and many visitors who came for the orange celebration are still in town or have come back. It is worth noticing the difference. King's Day is a peak date, with every booking carrying half ahead and hours fixed weeks in advance. The days a week later are ordinary. A visitor who missed a booking on King's Day evening because every hour had gone may find the fifth a much easier alternative. The King's Day page covers the twenty-seventh itself.

A visitor staying for both

Plenty of people plan a short trip that covers both days, arriving on the fourth and leaving on the sixth. For them the two evenings make a natural pair. On the fourth, an hour fixed for half past nine, well after the silence and the ceremony, falls into a city that has gone quiet in a thoughtful way. On the fifth, an hour after the music in the parks has finished suits a guest who has been outdoors all afternoon. Each is a separate booking with its own date and hour, and each carries half ahead if it is fixed from home more than a day before it starts.

What the two days show

They show that not every date on the calendar is about crowds and deposits. Some are about knowing what a city is doing at a particular moment, and choosing an hour that fits around it. The month by month calendar marks both days, along with the rest of the year's dates.