Without a doubt, Queen Elizabeth's favourite country is her hometown the United Kingdom, but Her Majesty has a favourite country as her holiday destination and she feels heartwarming when she travels there. The country is none other than the tiny island situated in the Mediterranean sea, Malta.
According to royal expert Victoria Arbiter, Malta is where Her Majesty feels the happiest while travelling outside the United Kingdom. "The years the Queen spent in Malta were said to be among the happiest of her life, and the Mediterranean archipelago was the only place outside the UK she ever called home.'' Victoria Arbiter added on the Queen's taste for Malta as ''there's much to be said for a taste of a normal existence when one inhabits an abnormal world."
Malta is situated off the south coast of Sicily and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip once shared a home in Malta during their early days of marriage after 1947. Just a week ago, the Maltese government revealed that they had purchased the Queen's home Villa Guardamangia. They also confirmed that most of the contents from their villa had been sold.
However, the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, announced that the villa will soon be turned into a tourist attraction once it has been restored and it will attract people from all around the world. The villa is said to be a huge sandstone building with orange trees surrounding its gardens.
The villa is monumental and has a rich history of its own. In 1949, Prince Philip returned to active naval service as second-in-command of HMS Chequers and with the permission from the Queen's father, King George VI, Philip flew to Malta in October, 1949 and stayed at the Villa Guardamangia. The position saw him as leader of the first destroyer flotilla of the Mediterranean Fleet based in Malta.
A month later, to celebrate their second wedding anniversary, Queen Elizabeth flew to Malta to join Prince Philip and their son Charles, who was one-year-old then, was left in the care of his grandparents back home. Also, Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten wrote to his daughter Lady Pamela about the Queen when she arrived at the villa in Malta saying, "Lilibet is quite enchanting, and I've lost whatever of my heart is left to spare entirely to her."
