Leiden Liberation Festival...

October 3 was a beautiful day, so I headed to Leiden to watch the annual parade in celebration of the liberation from Spain in 1574. The theme this year was Parade Royale. Not quite sure how most of the floats qualified as royal, but I still enjoyed seeing the crazy variety. These cakes and cupcakes were a creative use of balloons.

These Leiden University graduates had fun on this portable bar.

This dragon was definitely the most mechanically sophisticated float.

The Transformers were cool, the little Super Girls and Wonder Girls were adorable...

....and the Caped Crusaders on stilts were very talented.

The last official floats were these antique firetrucks. This first one was built in 1929...

...and this one was built in 1961.

Just behind the official parade were the usual sellers of gigantic mylar balloons. The world really doesn’t need any more wayward balloons polluting the landscape, but they do serve as a colorful subject for a photo.