The Queen and Prince Philip yesterday were given a warm welcome shortly after arriving Malta for a short private visit coinciding with their sixtieth wedding anniversary.
They stayed overnight at San Anton, where they will meet President and Mrs Fenech Adami and fly to Uganda today morning for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Hundreds flocked to Glormu Cassar Avenue in Floriana to applaud the royal couple on their way to the Upper Barrakka Gardens where they met Maltese couples who like them were married in 1947.
Her Majesty also planted a tree near a plaque reading: "This tree was planted on the occasion of the diamond wedding anniversary of of Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.”
As Princess Elizabeth, the Queen lived in Malta from 1949 to 1951 while her husband was stationed on the island as a serving Royal Navy officer. After their marriage celebrations in 1947, the couple stayed with Prince Philip’s uncle, Earl Mountbatten, at Broadlands House, his home in Hampshire, before heading to Balmoral in Scotland for the rest of their honeymoon.
On Monday, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Rev Rowan Williams, said the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s 60 years of marriage reflected “the unqualified commitment” of the monarch’s reign.
Williams paid tribute to “the sign offered to us by this marriage, and what it has meant to nation and Commonwealth over the decades.”