A ski enthusiast and in good shape at 85, Princess Beatrix of Orange, mother of King William of the Netherlands, is recovering at home from a broken wrist. The accident happened this Friday during a vacation in the city of Lech (Austria), the country preferred by the Dutch royal family for snow sports, and where he died in 2012 while practicing the same sport, his middle son Friso The information service of the royal family has on confirmed this Tuesday that he has already had surgery and is fine.
Beatriz has been considered a royal princess since the current sovereign’s accession to the throne in April 2013, and has remained on the throne for three decades since her coronation in Amsterdam Cathedral in 1980. He was 75 when he abdicated naturally and discreetly to celebrate the monarchy’s 200th anniversary in his Paris. Eight months later he broke his cheekbone in a fall. He also required surgery, but the injury was not serious.
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Princess Beatrix was just one year old when she took her first photos in the snow in Austria. As soon as he could put on his skis, he didn’t miss this winter date with his family. Age hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm, and spokesmen for the royal household have declined to explain how the wrist was broken. They point out that it was necessary to leave for a later visit to the Home for Retired Soldiers, an institution celebrating its 160th anniversary. It was scheduled for this Friday. In addition to skiing, Beatriz de Orange enjoys horseback riding and Nordic walking, an outdoor endurance sport using ski-like sticks.
The Dutch royal family is made up of Kings Guillermo and Máxima, Crown Princess Amalia, 19, and Beatriz himself. Eight new photos of him, the King and the heiress were released this January to mark his 85th birthday. She usually accompanies them and stays with her daughter-in-law, Princess Mabel, widow of her second son, Prince Friso, and their two girls for a few more days.
Princes Friso and Mabel of the Netherlands with their daughters Luana and Zaria on February 19, 2011 in Lech, Austria. Patrick van Katwijk (Cordon Press)
In February 2012, Friso was skiing off-piste in the same Austrian resort of Lech when he was engulfed by a midday snow avalanche. He had gone off the track with three companions who were unharmed, but he lay under the snow for 20 minutes and his body temperature dropped to 32 degrees. He was located thanks to the fact that he was wearing a GPS system in his parka, but was unable to recover. After almost a year and a half in a coma, he died in August 2013 at the age of 44.
Friso’s grave is in a cemetery very close to his mother’s current home, Drakensteyn Castle, in the center of the country. He has lived there since the abdication, and this residence has brought him home. It is the home she shared between 1963 and 1981 with her husband, the late Prince Claus, and their three children (Prince Konstantin is the third and youngest). Once on the throne, she moved to the Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague. a large octagonal building surrounded by a moat renovated in 2019 by the current kings for more than 63 million euros.