WILLIAMSBURG (Virginia), May 4: Greeted by crowds of admirers and bouquets of flowers, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II strolled past thatched-roof homes in historic Jamestown on Friday in a visit that evoked both US colonial history and the early part of her own reign.

The British monarch’s visit marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown by English settlers who sailed for five months across the Atlantic in search of gold and silver.

Despite travails including a scarcity of food and clean water, the colonists established the first permanent British settlement in North America and named it after King James I.

The queen, wearing a teal coat and matching hat, was joined by Vice-President Dick Cheney in walking past homes and a church created as replicas of the structures of the original 1607 settlement.

For some Virginians old enough to have been in the area in 1957, the visit brought a sense of deja vu. Queen Elizabeth, then a young mother who had assumed the throne just five years earlier, came to Jamestown for its 350th anniversary as well.

“She has a lot of demands on her,” said Hugh DeSemper, 80.

“It’s so wonderful that she chose to come here again.”—Reuters