Amsterdam last week was decorated with a million tulips, a billion gaily colored lights, and the most lavish array of royalty that Europe has seen since the coronation of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. To celebrate Queen Juliana's 53rd birthday and 25th wedding anniversary, five other reigning monarchs and a pride of princes trooped to The Netherlands. In a three-day round of banquets, balls and royal rubbernecking that left even the doughty Dutch amazed at their red-blooded stamina, the bluebloods seemed less of an anachronism—and considerably more attractive—than café society at play.
Ogled Oligarch. Juliana's top-ranking guests were Queen Elizabeth, one of the world's richest women.* and the Shah of Iran, whose pretty young Empress Farah was the week's most ogled oligarch. The other reigning monarchs on hand: Norway's King Olav V, Luxembourg's Grand Duchess Charlotte, and King Baudouin of the Belgians, who arrived a day late in order to spare Queen Fabiola, who is reportedly pregnant, the full rigors of a royal wingding.
Many titled heads came from principalities and powers that no longer exist, such as Lippe-Biesterfeld. the stamp-sized German principality once ruled by the family of Prince Bernhard, Juliana's live-wire husband. Some of the noblest names were borne by hard-working royals such as Britain's globe-trotting Princess Alexandra and Dr. Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia, a grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II who once worked as a mechanic in a Detroit auto plant. Going Dutch with their Queen, Amsterdam's city fathers contributed $28,000 to the royal revels, while 1,500,000 loyal Dutchmen enthusiastically lined the city's ancient canals to roar "Hiep, hiep, hoera!" and sing a patriotic song called Tulips of Amsterdam, Offered to You, Our Queen.
So that the Hohenzollerns could catch up with the Habsburgs. and young princes with eligible princesses. Queen Juliana democratically lodged all 130 guests at Amsterdam's plush Amstel Hotel instead of scattering them through her own draughty palaces. (Hotel bill: $7,000.) She showed equal sense when it turned out that a royal expedition to the famed Keukenhof tulip fields would have to buck traffic jams swollen by a European soccer cup final in Amsterdam. Instead of sending her guests by car or state coach, Juliana packed them into three buses, each specially equipped with a bar. and the riders looked for all the world like Greyhound passengers rattling through Kansas. The experience was so novel, and the Queen's liquor supply so generous, that the royals had a high old time. Reported one bus driver: "They were thrilled by the idea. They made jokes about themselves, changed seats a lot and visited around."
Twining & Twisting. A more conventional setting for a royal fling was the Dutch luxury liner Oranje, which its owners lent to Queen Juliana for an evening cruise along the North Sea Canal. Sporting $12 million worth of jewelry, the titled guests were joined midway by 180 college friends of Juliana's four daughters. Among the friends: a 25-year-old lawyer, Bob Steensma, who has often been photographed holding hands and drinking wine with Princess Beatrix, 24, heiress apparent to the Dutch throne.