After a few wonderful weeks of summer vacation, reality is also presenting itself for our princess Ariane. She has started her second and final year at UWC Adriatic. What exactly awaits the princess?
In the summer, our Oranjes traditionally celebrate freedom in sunny Greece, although King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima and Princesses Amalia and Alexia also made an appearance at the Olympic Games in between. However, we have not seen the youngest A, Princess Ariane, all summer – and now her vacation is over!
Back to school
In the south and centre of our country the school holidays are already over, and in the north one can still enjoy one week of freedom and happiness. In the Italian Duino the summer holidays also ended last week.
A quick glance at the United World College Adriatic calendar shows that both first- and second-year students were welcomed back to the historic school building last week. Among them is Princess Ariane, who, like her classmates, will have to prepare for her exams in the coming months.
Italian boarding school
After father Willem-Alexander and sister Alexia had already completed their secondary school at the Welsh branch of the United World College (UWC), Ariane opted for the Italian section of the boarding school community.
And of course, the princess doesn’t choose just any school. The UWC has been known for years as a prestigious boarding school, where students do more than just follow their standard lessons.
“We believe that education should help young people discover that change is possible, and that they can make it happen,” states the UWC on their website. In practice, this means that students at one of the prestigious boarding schools are involved in all kinds of charity projects and initiatives in the field of sustainability, diversity, and community, in addition to their regular curriculum. This way, the young students have quite a busy life!
Now that all sounds very challenging, but fortunately the students can recover a bit in the beautiful surroundings of Duino. The school itself already shared an atmospheric montage of some highlights from the past school year.
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Musical talent
In addition, UWC Adriatic is known for its focus on musical education. Singing, dancing, theatre, cellos and guitars, flutes and drums – young musical talents are in their element here!
Princess Ariane fits in perfectly here. On the website of our Royal House you can read that Ari likes to spend her free time on ‘hockey, playing guitar, dancing, drawing, tennis and singing’.
Does it also mean that we will see the princess singing and swinging at an exam concert at the end of this year? We dare not assume that – the Italian school usually makes sure that our princess stays out of sight. Too bad for us, but nice for the youngest A’tje.
During King’s Day this year, Ariane said that she had missed her parents during her stay in Italy. “I’m happy to be back, because I did miss my parents,” she revealed. “It’s quite a distance,” the princess reflected.
Ambitious princesses
The coming months will be tough for Princess Ariane in any case. However, she is not the only one with big plans: Princess Alexia recently announced that she will be leaving for London next year to start a study in Science and Engineering for Social Change.
Only Crown Princess Amalia is currently still studying in the Netherlands – she will start her third year of study at the University of Amsterdam next week. Last week, several sources reported that the Princess of Orange had become a member of the Amsterdam Student Corps after all. And that is quite remarkable, because when the association came under fire in 2022, the princess renounced her membership. That year, a considerable commotion arose around the association, when a video was leaked in which women were described as ‘whores’ and ‘sperm buckets’. Not very chic, of course.
Source: UWC Adriatic, Glamial archive | Image: NL Beeld
