Queen Elizabeth II made a total of five visits to Italy throughout her life, all of which have solidified the British queen's ties with the Bel Paese.
The last was in 2014: just 24 hours spent between the Quirinal and the Vatican, but an unparalleled occasion, nonetheless.
Dressed in an elegant lilac coat and hat, the Queen arrived at Ciampino airport with the Duke of Edinburgh and headed straight to the presidential palace of then Italian head of state, Giorgio Napolitano, with whom she maintained a long friendship, defined by a deep sense of mutual admiration and respect.
What is not as well known, however, is that on her first trip to Italy, Elizabeth was still a princess.
It was 1951, she had been married to Philip for four years, and the couple came to Italy for a Spring vacation in the second half of April.
They flew from Malta to Rome, and an honour guard of the Carabinieri was there to welcome them.
During the stay they also attended a luncheon with then-President Luigi Einaudi at the Quirinal and met with Pope John XXIII; 20 minutes with the pontiff in his private study, as the princess was not on an official visit.
The young royal couple were immersed in the rollicking Rome of the ‘Dolce Vita’ era, but thankfully still, a city on the cusp of its paparazzi explosion.
The two visited the Colosseum, the horse race on the Appia Antica, and even enjoyed a party for the princess' 25th birthday at Villa Adriana in Tivoli before moving on to Florence.
Queen Elizabeth's first visit to the Bel Paese in 1951. (Photo: ANSA)
A few months later everything changed.
Following the death of her beloved father, King George VI and her subsequent coronation, Elizabeth's travels would no longer be for pleasure, but state visits, over the next 70 years.
So to Italy she returned as queen for the first time in May 1961: the president of the Republic was Giovanni Gronchi and the country had already changed a great deal, with the humble hopes of the immediate post-war period having bloomed into overwhelming enthusiasm amid the economic boom.
On that occasion, the visit was scheduled to the minute: Sardinia, Sicily, Naples and then Rome, where among the crowd of 20,000 who welcomed the queen stood Anna Magnani.
There was a banquet held in her honour, with three thousand guests, the press closely following every detail: the silk and tulle dress, the embroidery, the tiara with emeralds and diamonds worn by the young queen.
Then came Florence and Venice.
In the city of lagoon, a ‘grazie’ bid in Italian to the gondolier; in Turin, a visit to the Expo ‘Italia 61’ and a meeting with Gianni Agnelli.
Another two decades passed and the Queen of England returned to visit Italy in 1980 to find a country once again changed, this time, radically.
The occasion was a state visit to the Vatican, the first by a British ruler.
Queen Elizabeth was welcomed by a Polish pope-John Paul II.
The president of the Republic was socialist Sandro Pertini, while back in Britain, the era of Margaret Thatcher had just begun.
On both sides of the channel, the enthusiasm of the 1960s had definitely given way to the hedonism of the 1980s.
A new century had begun before the Buckingham Palace tenant returned to Italy once more.
As chance would have it, her flight landed at Ciampino at the same time as a charter filled with fans of the London soccer team Arsenal, who were coming to Rome to watch a Champions League match with Lazio.
