The Juliana Birth Linden

This lime was planted on Keizer Karelplein to mark the birth of Princess Juliana in April 1909, the future queen who would go on to reign over the Netherlands for 32 years, and the tree still carries a small royal fence around its base. What that fence does not carry is any mention of Juliana at all: the register notes, with some evident amusement, that the ironwork skips the commemoration entirely and instead repeats a single instruction six times over, no bicycles. The tree stands at Keizer Karelplein, one of three squares that ring the Basilica of Saint Servaas, Maastricht's oldest surviving church and the burial place of the city's first bishop. Juliana herself never had any particular connection to Maastricht beyond the timing of her birth, which was enough in 1909 for a municipality to plant a tree and forget, or simply never get around to, actually saying why. It stands in the open square today, free to see, a two minute walk from a second monumental linden on the neighbouring Vrijthof.