The Dutch King and Queen visited the province of Drenthe in the northern Netherlands on Wednesday, just one day after Prince’s Day in the Hague. Yesterday, they presented the Dutch government’s plans for the upcoming year with a large ceremony. Today, their visit to Drenthe was considerably less official.
They visited both nature-related issues in Drenthe, such as the Dwingelderveld, the largest wet heathland area in Western Europe, and a top-level scientific institution: ASTRON in Dwingeloo. ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, is one of the top three institutes in the world in the field of radio astronomy. It has a large radio telescope, which will be used for research into space. It was opened in 1956, by Queen Juliana, Willem-Alexander’s grandmother.
The King and Queen arrived in Hoogeveen at ten o’clock in the morning. In addition to Hoogeveen, they visited De Wolden, Westerveld and Meppel, where they allowed themselves to catch up on all kinds of residents’ initiatives.
