Grand Arrival Of St. Nicholas To Amsterdam

On November 18th, 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. With more than a kilometre of floats and boats, Amsterdam hosts the largest Saint Nicholas parade in the world. Sinterklaas sails into town on a Sunday mid-November with 600 Pieten and plenty of pepernoten (small spiced biscuits), welcomed by upwards of 400,000 spectators who line the canals. The white-bearded legend traditionally makes his spectacular entrance into the city by sailing down the Amstel River and following a route through the city past the Nieuwe Amstelbrug, Torontobrug, the Hoge Sluis by the Royal Theatre Carré and the Magere Brug. The parade ended in the center of the town, at the Dam square. The Dutch tradition of "Zwarte Piet" ("Black Pete"), in which people wear blackface makeup to portray a folkloric servant of Saint Nicholas, has been the source of increasing controversy for what its critics describe as racist caricature. In 2015, a United Nations committee urged the Netherlands, where the tradition is most widespread, to drop the character, finding that “the character of Black Pete is sometimes portrayed in a manner that reflects negative stereotypes of people of African descent and is experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery." (Photo by Romy Arroyo Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images)