Queen Elizabeth to visit Belgium

10 July 2007

BRUSSELS – Queen Elizabeth II of Britain and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh will be paying Belgium an official visit on Thursday. They will be stopping in at Waver, Laken, Ieper and the military cemetery Tyne Cot in Passendaele. The Belgian royal family will be accompanying them during the visit.

The British monarch will receive Prince Philip and Princess Mathilde at the Brussels hotel Le Méridien on Thursday morning. They will then depart for Waver, where they will visit pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, where they will discuss health in developing countries, women’s health and the flu virus.

The queen and her husband are expected at the palace in Laken for lunch with King Albert and Queen Paola. At 3 pm the British royal couple will leave for Ieper with Queen Paola. They will visit the Menenpoort, which bears the names of the British soldiers who died in the area during World War I.

They will attend a ceremony at the cemetery of Tyne Cot in Passendaele to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle at Passendaele.

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh will head back to London at 5.20 pm.

Subject: Belgian news