Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, who is celebrating her 50^th birthday on Monday, has granted an interview about her ‘love, work and life’ to television presenter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk.

Snippets of the in interview, which is over an hour long and will be broadcast at 8.35pm on NPO 1, have already been released.

In one of these Máxima said that after her wedding to Willem-Alexander in 2002 she would drive around the Netherlands ‘wearing a black wig and carrying a big map’ to explore the country. She would chat to people ‘to practice my Dutch’ and eat bitterballen in bars, she told a beaming Van Nieuwkerk.

The queen also said she relished the time she could spend with her family because of coronavirus. ‘I have to admit that before corona I was travelling too much and I was secretly relieved I didn’t have to, particularly now that two of our children will be leaving home soon’.

Princess Amalia will be taking a year off after her final exams but it is not yet known what she will do. Princess Alexia will be studying at the UWC Atlantic College in Wales, which her father also attended.

Caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte was among those congratulating the queen on her birthday. On Twitter he said Máxima ‘had seen Sara’, a traditional but kindly Dutch way of suggesting that women who turn 50 are now of ‘a certain age’.

Koningin Máxima ziet Sara vandaag. Ik feliciteer haar van harte met haar vijftigste verjaardag – een heus kroonjaar – en wens haar een prachtige en feestelijke dag toe met haar gezin. pic.twitter.com/IDejDMY4Dc

— Mark Rutte (@MinPres) May 17, 2021

Men who turn 50 ‘see Abraham’. Abraham and Sara are Biblical figures who had a child together at a very advanced age.