Enthusiastic Romans Mob The Queen

Press, Volume C, Issue 29504, 4 May 1961, Page 15

Enthusiastic Romans Mob The Queen

(NZ. Press Assn.—Copyright)

LONDON, May 3. The Queen was mobbed yesterday amid the ancient ruins of Rome, newspapers reported. Vast crowds of Romans, including black-robed priests, monks and nuns, abandonded their siestas and work to pour on to the procession route. They gave her the most enthusiastic welcome republican Rome has ever afforded a visiting Head of State.

When she appeared on the balcony of Quirinal Palace last night a chanting crowd of 20,000 went wild with delight. One policeman said: "Julius Caesar himself would have been flattered.” A British reporter wrote: "Tn ail the many Royal occasions which I have reported I cannot recall a reception which could touch this one for bubbling zest and high spirits.” The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will begin the second day of their State visit to Italy today by laying a wreath at the tomb of Italy's Unknown Warrior. The Queen was accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and President Gronchi of Italy when she appeared on the balcony above the main archway of Quirinal Palace. The crowd below had kept up an insistent chant of “Li-sa-be-ta, Li-sa-be-ta” in the hope of an unscheduled glimpse of the Royal visitor. They roared with disappointment when the bal-

cony doors were first closed —but kept up their chant until the doors were opened and the Queen appeared. Earlier, crowds had surged forward to mob the Royal car as it left the Ostiense station after the Queen's arrival by train from Naples. The crowds were thinner along the middle part of the long Royal drive to the Presidential Palace. But after passing the Colosseum, where a guard of curiassiers in gleaming breastplate and plumed helmets replaced the police motor-cycle escort, the pavements were jammed with Romans, cheering and clapping. The Queen, who wore a dress and coat of white silk zibelline piped with navy blue and a white Breton hat banded with navy blue, stood up in her open car for much of the way to wave back to the crowds. The Queen said at the State banquet tonight that she had come to Italy “to make the opening of a new

chapter in the traditional friendship between our two countries.” Addressing President Gronchi and other high-ranking guests in the Quirinal Palace, she said: "The problems, the opportunities, and the dangers of the future may be greater than in centuries past, but we face these dangers together, members of the same alliance, pledged to the same ideals, and strengthened by the achievements of our predecessors.”