What a blast at Amsterdam Pride 2019 !
We just can't believe how much fun we all had at Amsterdam Pride 2019, it was non stop from the moment we arrived and just carried on 24/7 . We landed in town on Friday and the bars and clubs were already packed, but the main event was the amazing Canal Parade.
Canal Parade Amsterdam Pride
The Canal Parade is probably the best Pride "procession" in the World. Nearly 3 hours of the most amazing and spectacular barges with close to 800.000 spectators all in party mode, whats not to like!
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade Route
With so many spectators it was still surprisingly easy to get a decent viewing point. Being the professional bunch we are (not!) and after stumbling around a few bars we arrived after the parade had started. But amazingly we found a great spot right next to one of the "Street bars" that hardly had a queue and a great view.
The best viewing points are next to any of the bridges and there are a couple of parks that face the canal that are also perfect.
Street Parties at Amsterdam Pride
We counted 7 (Yes 7, Crazy Dutch Party people !) Street Parties during Amsterdam Pride.
In the interests of journalism, we tried our honest best to visit as many as possible and almost bagged them all. Unfortunately, general excitement, large quantities of beer, Space cake and probably more Bongs than your Mum would agree with meant that our quest to find the final Fetish Street Party didn't quite work.
At that point, I was dribbling and the other two were not much better. Probably a good thing we didn't inflict our sorry asses on the Fetish Party. There is always next year !.
Amsterdam Pride 2019 was based on the theme of "Remember the past , create the future". There were 80 official Canal Parade barges with a total of 280 various boats taking part.
One of the most remarkable was the Dutch Firefighters barge ( and yes they did have a big hose !) every Pride loves its firefighters eh. The Armed Forces barge drew huge cheers as they saluted the crowds, very cool. But there were just heaps of barges where they were just floating parties, honestly it is on my bucket list to get my ass on one of those , they were having so much fun. There was even the LGBTQ Tokyo Olympic team barge.
Once the Canal Parade had finally finished the crowds moved off to the many Street Parties and the Drag Queen Olympics. All the bars were bursting, but luckily Amsterdam's got plenty of bars!
Our weekend carried on in party mode making the most of Amsterdam Pride with pit stop visits to The Eagle, Dirty Dicks, PRIK, The Queens Head, Spijker Bar amongst others. And without exception the locals were brilliant and with Pride, we met people from all over the place (then tried to get their pants off !)
Well that's it from Amsterdam Pride 2019 !
We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and if you haven't been yet then make sure its on your "To Do list" real soon !