Princess Anne Wears One of Her Favorite Gold Brooches While Visiting Greece

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Princess Anne arrived in Greece on Friday for a three-day visit to the country to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Crete during World War II. Accompanied by her husband, Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, the Princess Royal first met with President Konstantinos Tasoulas at the Presidential Mansion in Athens, which previously served as the Royal Palace.

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Princess Anne, and Sir Timothy Laurence in the background, with Greek President Konstantinos Tasoulas.

For the meeting, Princess Anne noticeably wore a brooch dating back to the mid20th century: her Gold Ribbon Brooch, crafted in the shape of a loosely knotted bow and studded with a dozen diamonds. According to The Crown Chronicles, Anne was first seen wearing it in February 1969 during a meeting with Apollo 8 commander and NASA astronaut Colonel Frank Borman at Buckingham Palace.

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Colonel Frank Borman and his wife Susan (left) with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, a young Prince Edward, and Princess Anne, wearing the gold brooch.

Like many pieces in her jewelry collection and wardrobe, the Princess Royal has worn this pin many times over the years, including during a trip to Washington, D.C. in 2014, for her official 70th birthday portrait in 2020, and most recently on Easter Sunday in April.

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Princess Anne, wearing the brooch, at an exhibition celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta at the Library of Congress in 2014.

Princess Anne has previously visited the Royal Palace in Athens before. Per Majesty Magazine, she attended the wedding of King Constantine and Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark at the Royal Palace in 1964, a decade before the Greek monarchy was officially abolished. The Princess Royal also attended King Constantine’s funeral in Athens in 2023.

From Athens, Anne will travel to Crete to attend a service at the Royal Air Force Memorial in the village of Maleme, honoring the airmen of squadrons who were killed in defensive action there in May 1941. The Battle of Crete was a pivotal and costly Allied engagement, during which German paratroopers launched one of the largest airborne invasions in military history to seize the strategically vital island. British, Greek, Australian, and New Zealand forces defended the island for 11 days before being overwhelmed, with the Allies suffering more than 3,500 killed and nearly 12,000 taken prisoner. The Royal Navy managed to evacuate around 17,000 men to Egypt, but roughly 5,000 Allies were left behind and captured.

Princess Anne will also attend a service of remembrance at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Souda Bay, which will include a flypast by the No. 30 Squadron, the newest operational unit of the Royal Air Force deployed in both combat and humanitarian scenarios, and the Red Arrows, the aerobatics display team of the RAF, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony. At a reception at the Grand Arsenal of Chania, a structure dating back to the 16th century, she will meet the relatives of those who fought in the battle and British veterans who settled on the island.

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Anne in Athens in 2012.

The Princess Royal regularly travels to Greece; she was last there in March 2025, when she attended a meeting in her role as a member of the International Olympic Committee. Anne has significant ties to the country, thanks to her father, Prince Philip. The late Duke of Edinburgh was born on the island of Corfu in June 1921, the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. He spent the first 18 months of his life on the island before a military coup forced his family into exile. A Royal Navy vessel, dispatched on the orders of King George V, evacuated the family, and the young Philip was carried aboard in a makeshift cot fashioned from an orange crate. Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles in 1947 before his marriage to the then-Princess Elizabeth.

Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.