Dutch Royals to spend King's Day in Rotterdam next year
The Dutch Royal Family will visit Rotterdam for the official King’s Day celebration in 2023, the family’s press office announced on Monday. King Willem-Alexander will attend the festivities and a special program in the Zuid-Holland city for the annual holiday to celebrate his birthday on 27 April.
“I am honored to tell you that the royal family will be celebrating King's Day in Rotterdam,” said Rotterdam’s mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, in a video posted to social media. “We are going to make it an unforgettable day. Put King's Day on your agenda. You are cordially invited to be here in Rotterdam.”
“It is nice and symbolic that the King has chosen a party in 010 for the celebration of 10 years of Kingship,” said the city’s culture alderman, Said Kasmi, referencing Rotterdam’s telephone area code 010. “Together with the city, we will make it an unforgettable party for the royal family, the people of Rotterdam and everyone who wants to celebrate this day with us.”
The city asked the public to provide ideas about what the program should include. The theme of the event will be announced on 10 December, and the program will be released on 10 March.
It will be the first official Royal Family visit to Rotterdam on King’s Day, and their first to celebrate in Zuid-Holland since Dordrecht hosted the event in 2015. When she was queen, Willem-Alexander’s mother Beatrix brought her family to Rotterdam in 1992. This year, Maastricht hosted the Royal family for King Willem-Alexander’s birthday - the first King’s Day celebrated without coronavirus restrictions since the pandemic arrived in the Netherlands in February 2020.
Willem-Alexander will be joined by members of his immediate and extended family at next year’s event, though exact details have not been announced. The notification suggested the possibility that Queen Maxima and their daughters, Princesses Amalia, Alexia, and Ariane, may attend the event. Amalia will be approaching the end of her first year of studies in the multidisciplinary Politics, Psychology, Law, and Economics program at the University of Amsterdam. Alexia will still be in attendance at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, where she is working towards her international baccalaureate. Ariane is participating in secondary school studies in The Hague.
The king last made an official working visit to Rotterdam to meet with police officers, paramedics and firefighters who were assaulted during riots against the coronavirus access pass policy last November. Over 170 people were arrested, and many local businesses were impacted.
The spontaneous meeting was his second visit to the city that month. He also opened the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum's publicly-accessible art depot a few weeks earlier.
“The ties with the Royal Family have always been strong. Rotterdam has always been able to count on the warm interest of our monarchs, for better and for worse. That is why Rotterdam will be the King's City of the Netherlands for one day on 27 April,” Aboutaleb said.
