Back in 2013, Muiderslot (Muiden Castle) was rebranded to Amsterdam Castle Muiderslot, which is 16 kilometres from Amsterdam Central Station, closer if you leave from the East of Amsterdam, and most people here thought it was ridiculous.

And now, in the spirit of peeing on something and claiming it is part of your territory, Het Loo Palace near Apeldoorn, Gelderland, 88 kilometres from Amsterdam, is being branded as the ‘Versailles of Amsterdam’.

Just what Amsterdam needs, to be compared to Paris. Even Versailles is in the city of Versailles, not Paris. It’s been ages and I’m still miffed that one of the classic songs about Amsterdam, ‘Geef mij maar Amsterdam’ talks more about Paris than Amsterdam, but that’s because many people Dutch or otherwise don’t know all the lyrics.

Het Loo is nowhere near Amsterdam and it’s beautiful enough not to need any Amsterdam stamp of approval. As well, calling everything Amsterdam is incorrect and incredibly arrogant, a Dutch cardinal sin if there ever was one. We’ve already had to deal with the world-famous Keukenhof being referred to Amsterdam Flowers, Zandvoort as Amsterdam Beach and a whole bunch of other idiotic rebranding ideas, all of it in English as well.

It’s bad enough Holland is used as a synonym for the Netherlands, why is this even necessary? Make it stop.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl , Photo by Wikipedia, some rights reserved)