March 12 london/diamond jubilee

In 2012 Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years since her coronation in 1953, and London is marking her Diamond Jubilee with a special program of events packed with exhibitions, processions, and pageantry from a grand flotilla on the Thames to a stately procession to St Paul's Cathedral. Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne on June 2, 1953 and it's on this weekend in 2012, that the main celebrations take place.

What fascinates everyone about the Queen is how she is at once both one of the most public, and one of the most private, figures in the world. Many Londoners will never have seen her close up, though they share a city. And only a small percentage have even met her. Yet she is strangely accessible in myriad ways.

Early memories: In London, there are traces of her early life everywhere: a plaque on the wall of what used to be 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair, where Elizabeth was born in a town house, as Princess Elizabeth of York. Just opposite the residence is the atelier of Norman Hartnell who would later become her couturier and the designer of her 1953 Coronation Dress. Not far away is 145 Piccadilly, where Elizabeth spent her early childhood. A bus ride west takes you to the former Hyde Park Hotel - now the Mandarin Oriental - where she and Princess Margaret had dancing lessons and where her father George once rolled up the carpet so he could dance with his wife (the late Queen Mother) after a private dinner on their wedding anniversary.

Horse fever: Stroll out of the Mandarin Oriental hotel into Hyde Park around 10.40 am or earlier on a Sunday, and Her Majesty’s Life Guard should trot past on their way to Whitehall, mounted on superb horses called the “Cavalry Blacks”. The Queen is never far from horses: until relatively recently, she attends the annual Trooping the Colour (June 16, 2012) (on horseback). And racing is in her blood. You may find her is at one of the big horse shows such as Badminton (May 3 to 7, 2012); Gatcombe Park (July 13 to 15, 2012); or the Royal Windsor (May 9 to 13, 2012), where she may well be strolling around, talking to other horse lovers.

The Derby in June (June 1, 2, 2012) is a race meeting that she attends in a personal capacity: she was visibly riveted – and stoic in defeat - last year as she watched her horse, Carlton House, lose by a whisker. Anyone seated on The Hill – the inside of the demanding race course on Epsom Downs, which is free – with a good pair of binoculars can see her (she may well be looking right back at you) and the merry occupants of the open-topped double-deckers parked bang opposite the Queen’s Stand and its Royal Box get an absolutely brilliant view.

And then there’s the formal attire Royal Ascot held in late June (June 19 to 23, 2012) where the entire Royal Party trundles up the race course via the Golden Gates at 2 pm on all five days of the meeting. They pass in front of all the stands and it’s weirdly moving to see an entire crowd doff their top hats and glare at anyone who fails to do so. It’s worth it just to see the Queen scanning her race card and then awarding prizes in the Parade Ring. The rest of the year the Ascot landaus or carriages used by the royal party are on display at the Royal Mews (http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/default.asp?action=article&ID=31 ) near Buckingham Palace, which also houses horses that draw them, known as Windsor Greys.

Royal residences: Then there are the Queen’s homes. Elizabeth loves Windsor Castle, where she lived during the World War II, and put on Christmas pantomimes with other children in the castle and made her famous BBC Children’s Hour wartime broadcast: Windsor Castle is open year round, with the odd glimpse of a car flying the royal standard zooming into the Upper Ward where the royal apartments are. The State Apartments at Buckingham Palace open to the public every August and September: this is where the 1st Buckingham Palace Guide Company was formed in 1937 so the Princess would have other children to play with, and from where she and Margaret slipped out on VE Day to join the crowds celebrating the end of the War (both of them praying not to be recognized).

Her other homes are often open to the public when she’s not there: Sandringham House in Norfolk, for example, where she always spends a month during the Christmas holidays, with a sprig of the Holy Thorn sent up from the vicarage at Glastonbury on the table. Balmoral Castle, her summer retreat in Scotland, is open for house visits and Land Rover Safaris on the estate earlier in the year; and Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh is open year round. The Queen has a passion for Scotland, like her ancestor, Queen Victoria – for its landscape, its dancing and its games. Catch all three at the annual Braemar Gathering on the first weekend in September, which the Queen, being patron, often attends, just as she always attends church near her holiday homes on Sundays and some religious holidays.

Romantic attachments: As a young princess Elizabeth met her dashing naval cousin, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, several times, but she fell in love with him when he was detailed to show her around the Naval College at Dartmouth, in Devon, for a day. They married eight years later, when she was 21. There are guided tours of the Naval College (www.discoverdartmouth.com ), generally on Wednesdays and Saturdays, though a similar outcome is not guaranteed. You can also visit the house where they spent the early part of their honeymoon, Broadlands in Hampshire, home to the Prince’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten. It reopens in summer 2012 after refurbishment.

Finally, if you really want to see the Queen, keep your eyes peeled in the roads around St James’s Palace and the Mall near Buckingham Palace. Sometimes, you can just see a diminutive figure through the tinted glass as a gleaming limousine glides past; sometimes, she waves.

Another way to keep abreast of the Queen’s planned engagements or the latest news of the Royal Family, visit the monarch website at http://www.royal.gov.uk.

For details the Diamond Jubilee events, visit http://www.thediamondjubilee.org where visitors to the site can even send an email congratulatory message to the Queen.