By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger
There is one interesting fact about Europe that I discovered on my very first trip there.
And that is, no matter how many things there are to do and how much fun and happening the pubs and clubs are from Monday thru Saturday, it all comes to a screeching halt on Sunday.
Discovering this was something that was, well, foreign to me. Being an American, I am used to looking forward to Sundays. They are are an extension of Friday night and Saturday. One last chance to soak up every fun ounce of the weekend. But not in Europe and after more travel there, I could not help but wonder why Sundays in European cities are always so dull.
In America, we get out and do things. Have picnics, house parties, go to events like beer and wine festivals, champagne brunches or rockin’ bars like Duke’s On Sunday in Waikiki Beach that are their best on the final day of the week.
Sunday Funday we call it. There’s even a social media hashtag about it: #sundayfunday.
But in Europe, they roll up the sidewalks on Sundays. Walk around nearly any city in Euorpe on a Sunday and you will find it deserted, as if the government issues fines to people for leaving their house on that day. Restaurants and bars are empty, the ones that are even open anyway. Like to drink alone? Go to a European city on a Sunday.
I even had trouble finding anything happening on a Sunday in Amsterdam. Amsterdam! Here is a city where you can smoke weed, eat space cakes, do poppers, watch people having sex or have it yourself with a lady of the evening (or morning or afternoon if you so desire), drink “tiny Hineys” as I call them from a staggering number of bars and about the only thing to do on a Sunday is go to a museum.
A friend and I spent and entire day going to every corner Amsterdam and could not find any place worthy of stepping in for a beer. And by the time we found one, we were too late; the workers were sweeping up broken glasses and it was us, two tipsy leftover customers and the bar staff. When I inqauired as to what we had missed, the bartender said “every Sunday 4-7, the biggest Sunday party in Amsterdam.” We had arrived just past 7. The place is Cafe Luxenbourg, in case you are wondering.
The point is that even a in city as wild as Amsterdam where pretty much anything goes, it’s a struggle to find anything happening on a Sunday.
Somy advice is not to hold anything back on Friday or Saturday. Or use Sunday as a travel day to go to another destination. Just don’t expect anything to be happening when you get there.