Queen of the Netherlands cruises downtown Austin by bike on royal visit

The City of the Violet Crown got a royal visitor on Thursday, when Queen Máxima of the Netherlands took an excursion through downtown Austin as part of a visit to the United States.

Máxima joined Mayor Steve Adler and other city officials for a scenic trip on a Gazelle e-bike along the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail from Austin City Hall to the Central Library.

To celebrate the arrival of Máxima and the "long-standing cultural and economic" friendship between the Texas capital and the European country, Adler proclaimed Sept. 8 as Netherlands-Austin Friendship Day.

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"This relationship is celebrated through frequent exchange among Austin civic leaders and their Dutch counterparts, including this unprecedented visit to us and on this day in September by her majesty, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands," Adler said at the event.

Adler first met Maxima at a conference in Washington, D.C., more than five years ago, he told the American-Statesman later Thursday. Among the long list of tech innovators and creators at that conference, many seemed to be from the Netherlands. Since then, Adler said, the Texas city and the Netherlands have worked with each another, with Austin taking inspiration from a number of Dutch creations.

“It’s always exciting to have royalty come pay us a visit," Adler said. "(Queen Maxima) is smart and attentive and probing and gracious. I very much enjoy having time with her.”

Máxima's visit coincided with the 10-year anniversary of a ThinkBike workshop that inspired Austin to adopt elements of Dutch bikeway network design into its own mobility infrastructure.

The design of Austin's award-winning Central Library also drew from Dutch innovation. When building the six-floor structure, the city borrowed elements of the Amsterdam Public Library at Oosterdokseiland and De Nieuwe Bibliotheek in Almere to give Austinites unique ways to "gather, learn, explore and play."

“When Austin was preparing to build its new Central Library, (Austin Public Library) staff visited libraries around the world — including in the Netherlands — to draw inspiration for the library of tomorrow," Roosevelt Weeks, director of the Austin Public Library, said in a statement. "It was an honor to show Her Majesty Queen Máxima our Central Library and highlight the ways that Dutch libraries inspired Austin to create a facility that is world-class, yet still uniquely Austin.”

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Before her stop in Austin, Máxima visited San Francisco and Silicon Valley. After the Central Library, Máxima was scheduled to make stops at Austin startup accelerator Capital Factory and Q2 Stadium, home of Austin FC, before heading to Houston.

The Dutch royal visit came on the same day that another European monarch, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, died at 96. Elizabeth visited Austin in 1991. She met then-Gov. Ann Richards and former first lady Lady Bird Johnson while in town.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander was scheduled to join Máxima during their four-day visit to California and Texas, but he pulled out of the trip due to his ongoing recovery from pneumonia.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Queen of the Netherlands cruises through downtown Austin