Packed Second Day Of Royal Tour

Press, Volume C, Issue 29505, 5 May 1961, Page 13

Packed Second Day Of Royal Tour

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

ROME, May 4. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will go to the races today, the last full day of their State visit to Italy.

They will see 13 horses compete in the Italian Derby at the Capannelle racecourse in Rome.

The Queen and the Duke retired to their apartments in the Quirinal Palace early today after attending a glittering gala performance of Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Rome Opera House.

The audience in the carna-tion-bedecked opera house had hailed the Royal couple with thunderous applause. The Queen wore an evening gown of ice-blue Chantilly lace and tulle with a diamond tiara and necklace, a white fur. and the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Thousands of Italians shouting “Viva, viva.” surged round the Queen’s car yesterday as she began the second packed day of her State visit to Italy. With the Duke of Edinburgh. she placed a wreath at the tomb of Italy’s Unknown Soldier, enshrined in the massive white monument to King Victor Emmanuel II between the Piazza Venezia and the Capitol hill. The sun shone as the Queen, wear'ng a pale yellow dress and turbanshaped straw hat, inspected a guard of honour. After the ceremony, the Duke, in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, put his finger into his collar and said "it was hot.” As they left the tomb for a similar ceremony at the

British Commonwealth War Cemetery, the Royal couple stood in their cars to acknowledge the crowd’s enthusiasm. Later, while the Queen received a delegation of girl guides, the Duke drove 15 miles to Frascati and asked scientists questions on Italy’s national synchrotron, one of the most powerful in the world. During a visit to a Red Cross centre, the Queen was presented with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Italian Red Cross Hundreds of pre-school children cheered her at the children’s pavilion and nursing school of the centre and a four-year-old presented her with a bouquet of purple orchids. The Queen and the Duke lunched as guests of Presi-

dent Gronchi at the beautiful Renaissance Villa Madama, designed by Raphael, which overlooks the river Tiber and the Olympic stadium. Before leaving the Presidential Palace for the villa, the Queen and the Duke gave their hosts a George 111 sliver tea caddy, and a painting by the nineteenth-century artist. Webster. President Gronchi also received an English shotgun. Packs of hounds with their masters in hunting pink greeted the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the International Horse Show in Rome’s Borghese Park later in the, day. Members of the 135-year-old Roman Fox-Hunting” Association were providing a curtain-raiser to the final stage of the Rome Grand Prix.