Dutch members - tell me about King's Day flea markets!

[Loona]

I am the type of toy collector who mostly enjoys finding her collectibles out in the wild, it never excites me as much to search for them&buy them off eBay. As a result, I love flea markets where people sell second-hand everyday stuff from their homes rather than vintage stuff/antiques (oh how I miss some of the flea markets of Helsinki ). For this reason I've always wanted to visit the all-around-the-country flea market extravaganza that happens on King's Day in The Netherlands. This year we decided to visit - things aren't going well currently*, so in the end we might not make it, but I thought I'd still gather information, because if we can't manage to visit during this year, I'd definitely love to next year, and the information will still be useful then 

*I won't rant here, but my father keeps on making sure we cannot go because of his carelessness... long story short: we were to go together by car, but it turns out he forgot to tell he and his girlfriend want to go earlier during the month, and they already booked plain tickets. He told us we can take the car and go with my husband, but now it turns out he also promised the car to my sister for that weekend...

We don't have a specific city in mind that we would like to stay at, we plan to spend 4-5 days there and travel to major cities with the car - therefore we can choose which city to spend this particular day at. Do you have any recommendation on which city would be the best to visit during this day with thrifting goals? If there are any, could you please also recommend me specific places (areas, squares, cities) that are the best to check out? Will this event only be taking place on the 27th, or also through the weekend?

I would mainly be looking to find G1&G2 ponies, Furbies (Dutch Furbies! I think I only have one so far *wishful eyes* ) and (non-vintage) fashion dolls and doll stuff (like clothes, furniture, car, accessories), and I'm also always on the lookout for tiny female wristwatches (the recent ones with the huge dials look super weird on my tiny wrists, but older ones used to come in smaller sizes).

Thanks to everyone who can help - any tips are welcome!

[Barnacle_lady]

Hey there, cool that you want to visit my country on most ponyhunting day of the year And its only one day the 27th of April. Next year the 26th because of Sunday no events day.
Basically the whole of Netherlands is one huge fleamarket that day. So practically every village and city has fleamarkets. There is no saying which city has the most chance on ponies. Every year its a surprise who finds what, thats the fun part.The one city I advise not to go this year is Amersfoort. The King and the royal family will be doing a tour over there and due to security reasons there will be less fleamarket options. And keep in mind it could be a hard time to park the car.
If you need more info let me know

[Loona]

Thanks a lot for the reply Barnacle_lady! That's a good tip about Amersfoort, as well as about parking the car. My husband is not a fan of driving inside cities, so even if we will have a car with us, most likely we would leave it at the accommodation and use public transport.

So, does this mean that people may basically "sit down" and sell anywhere they want to, or are there certain areas in cities (e.g. squares, certain streets, parking places) designated for these acivities (and if there are, are these listed anywhere)? Another thing I was wondering about: what happens if the weater is rainy, are people still out, or are the flea markets moved to covered areas (like sports halls), or cancelled?

[Barnacle_lady]

You're welcome
Yes public transport is your best friend that day. Trains go mostly their usual route but trams and buses might avoid the busy areas. So take good walking shoes.

Hell yes about the fleamarkets A lot of people will sit in front of their house selling stuff, you know garage sale style. But other people are taking their stuff to another street or park and go sell their stuff over and some areas are designated for children only.
Ofcourse safety has to be kept in mind, so that emergency services can reach places if needed. So its not allowed to sell literally everywhere. All this info can be found online on their local website. And if you are on your way most local people can also help you where to find the nearest fleamarket/selling area.

What about the weather? Rain or shine, the party is still on. I put a raining coat on, take an umbrella along and just moving on. For those who are selling stuff its their own choice if they want to sit in the rain but most of them arrange a tent if they know its going to be rainy. After all its one day in a year only to have such opportunity Cancelling will only happen in extreme weather conditions and its mostly the large crowd activities like concerts/party that go first. Kings day is not only flea markets but also live music in most areas, children doing tricks to earn money and that kind of stuff.
So nothing to worry if the weather is not sunny that day.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

It sounds like such a fun way to holiday and pony hunt!

[kingluke]

By all means visit us on kingsday.
 
As said before, there is no pony garantuee, and the weather might be great to mediocre at best. The public transport is pretty good, tho it's really expensive if you have to treavel by train. (I have seen train rides that cost 20 euros just to get somewhere) But for the rest it's basically the whole city selling fun goods and playing music, selling treats ect. I hope you can go and have fun

edit: Orange! people will be dressed in orange clothes, orange wigs, flag face paint, ect. It's because orange is the national dutch colour. Also there is a store called Hema where they sell this pastrie called Tompouce, it will also be orange that day. (Normally it's pink, I reccommend getting it after kingsday because it's gonna be on discount and on kingsday they will most likely be sold out)

[Moonbreeze]

Ooh, fun! Kingsday can either be a hit or a miss In terms of ponies and weather. Although the party usually goes on with rain, the fleamarkets might not (it's a matter of how much rain one can take xD ). It's all outside on the (orange) streets, so keep in mind that most town/ city centres are closed off for cars.

Edit: there are specific zones for people to sell Usually in and around the centre of the town. Larger towns or cities might have some small extra market zones though.

[Loona]

(apologies for the late response, my notifications are turned on, but for some reason, in the past couple of weeks I just don't receive post or PM notifications from either the MLP Arena or the MH Arena. I don't know what might cause this issue )

Thank you for the replies again to all of you!  These are all very useful!

Now that you mention, I remember I've heard about the children-only selling areas before, and I know I wanted to visit those - on one hand I always love when children are consciously taught to resell (or donate) the toys they no longer need, and I like to spend my money on stuff sold this way, by children, and on the other hand, I'm mainly looking for toys (not only ponies, and not only old toys), so chances I find something at their booths are higher

By local website, do you mean the websites of the cities, or does the day itself also have an official site (I tried to look for the latter in English and in Dutch, but did not find one)?

I'm happy to hear the weather is likely not such a big issue - and if it rains, at least I'll have the opportunity to try out the "parka in a pocket" I bought last week

Tompouce looks yummy! That said, it is unfortunately not vegan (traditionally), so I wouldn't be able to try it out - after a quick check though, I'm confident I will find places where I can get a vegan version of it

[Barnacle_lady]

Did you check your pop-up settings?
By local website I mean the one from the city itself. Its impossible to cover all Kings day activities of the Netherlands on 1 website You can try google  "name city" Koningsdag. It's only 2 weeks until the 27th so maybe there is more info now. If that doesn't work send me a PM. That if you know which city you are going to.
Yes children markets tend to have a bigger chance but as said before no guarantees. A lot of stuff can also be found outside those areas is my experience so don't rule that out either.
Selling cakes and cookies is also one of the activities on the markets. And since vegan food is also popular over here there is a chance they are selling vegan variants too.

[Loona]

Thank you for the reply again (and sorry for the late response, my days are awfully busy with work during the day and planning the trip during the night - we'll continue the trip in Germany and the Czech Republic after leaving The Netherlands).

I fear it's not the pop-up settings unfortunately, once I'm on the site I do get the pop-up notification (about PMs), it's the e-mail notification about watched topics that I do not receive.

In the end we'll be staying in Weesp between the 26th and 28th (we'll spend the first night of the trip - the 25th in Bunnik/Utrecht, and the last one - the 28th - in Rotterdam, and we'll attend a festival in Rotterdam on Sunday evening before leaving for Germany) - we wanted to be in Amsterdam in the end during the 27th, but accommodation there was too expensive. In Weesp we found an apartment that was still OK budget-wise, and from here it's quick to get to Amsterdam by train, and train tickets are not too expensive either (3.5 EUR IIRC). On this site I found a list of parks that will hold flea markets, so I'll be looking these locations up and see which ones I can visit once in the city we plan to walk - we tend to walk up to 20-30 kms per day when we are visiting new locations during holidays, so walking all day isn't a problem for me we'll see how big an area can I cover depending on the crowd

[Barnacle_lady]

Yesterday me and Loona had a great time with thrifting through Amsterdam. It was mostly sunny but at moments wet and cold but we managed to find nice stuff. Pics will be in brag section.

[Broken Irishwoman]

I'm looking forward to your bragpost!

Over here it was pitiful! The weather was awful, which had a massive impact on how many people were selling stuff. It was just like three years ago when there was a storm. I left after less than two hours, usually it takes me about four hours to see everything (I always visit two places).

I didn't find anything, let alone ponies.

[Loona]

Apologies for taking so incredibly long to post this... my brag post is finally up (here) - it took me a long time to summarise everything, but it was worth it, as writing this all up made me remember that happy day again, and now I'm all smiles and happiness

Once again, thank you for the tips, everyone, they were very helpful! And special thanks to Barnacle_lady for offering to accompany me for the day, it was so much fun pony hunting together

It was such a wonderful experience to visit the Netherlands on this special day - I had plenty of vegan stuff to eat (first I bought fruit cake from a little girl, and then noodles and a muffin from two ladies; my husband bought vegan hot dog), and I enjoyed everything, not only the pony (and other toy) hunt, but also the happiness that everyone was radiating on this day. People were kind, helpful, smiling and happy everywhere, and the happiness  was toxic - I wish we too had a day of celebration like this. While I normaly don't like the crowd, I didn't have any issues this time, and I enjoyed mingling with them after the flea markets were over. It was definitely a day to remember, and I hope I can go back again someday in the future

[Broken Irishwoman]

So nice to hear, I hope you'll get the chance visit Kingsdag more often!

And I'm sorry I didn't notice this thread before Kingsday, usually threads like this never fly under my radar. But everyone already gave you great advice, I wouldn't even know what else to add!