In a renovated rectory in the Walloon village of Villers-sur-Lesse, King Albert II (86) and Queen Paola (83) spend the corona crisis. They walk around with bodyguards after them and no one is surprised by their presence, villagers say Le Soir Magazine.
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There are worse places to stay than Villers-sur-Lesse, a picturesque district of Rochefort in the province of Namur with a population of about 500. It is there that Queen Paola acquired a dilapidated rectory in 2010, which at that time was occupied by squatters. A few renovations and an extension later, she decided to temporarily leave Belvédère Castle with King Albert. The royal couple are known to enjoy traveling to Italy and France, but those trips have been banned during the pandemic. So they took up residence in Villers-sur-Lesse.
According to Bernard de Traux de Warin, a friend of the royal couple, Paola’s choice to buy the presbytery there was no coincidence. “They love the area,” he says Le Soir Magazine. The queen has made something charming and cozy out of that presbytery. They live in all simplicity in the heart of the village and have a lot of sympathy for their fellow residents. ‘ They live there with security personnel, a butler, a housekeeper and a cook.
Flowers
Some of Albert and Paola’s fellow villagers have their say in the article. They say that King Philippe’s parents do not hide. “When the weather is nice, they like to walk down the street in the late afternoon,” says one of them. “With their bodyguards after them. They then say friendly hello to everyone. We greet them and that’s it. We’ll leave them alone. ‘
The royal couple rigorously adheres to the corona measures, it sounds, but on the street they sometimes have a conversation with fellow villagers. ‘They are very simple and greet everyone. The queen even went in to the gentleman next door, 102 years old. They talked a bit. She also visited my mother. Paola loves flowers and saw my mother had some. They talked about it. ‘
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