Queen Visits 'Legoland' to Boost Tourism ~Nimiwae~

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth came face-to-face with herself -- in Lego bricks -- during a visit to a children's theme park intended to promote flagging tourism.

While the Queen was at "Legoland," also viewing a miniature model of Buckingham Palace made from 100,000 tiny plastic blocks, eight senior royals fanned out to other tourist sites across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

"With SARS (news - web sites), September 11 and everything, tourism is going through a difficult time at the moment," a Buckingham Palace spokesman said Tuesday. "The royal family wants to highlight the great tourism attractions round the country."

Britain's tourism industry lost about 1.5 billion pounds ($2.47 billion) in revenues due to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the foot-and-mouth (news - web sites) disease which devastated livestock and kept people away from rural areas the same year.

The Iraq (news - web sites) war and SARS disease this year have cost British tourism another roughly 1.0 billion pounds ($1.65 billion) in lost revenues, the state agency VisitBritain estimates.

"It's hugely important to re-focus people's minds here on the importance of the tourism industry," said a spokeswoman.

While his mother was at Legoland on the outskirts of London, heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles donned a kilt in the Scottish capital Edinburgh as he visited a whisky heritage center and chatted in the "Royal Mile" street with visitors.

The other royals were at a plethora of rural beauty spots and historic sites across the land.

At Legoland, the Queen was joined by her husband, Prince Philip, on his 82nd birthday.

Waving to the crowds, the pair paid a visit to Mini Land, where they surveyed a Lego model of Edinburgh Castle and an eight-foot high recreation of London's landmark BT Tower.

At the model of Buckingham Palace, the Queen saw a miniature version of herself -- coincidentally clad in a near-identical yellow and white outfit.

"We thought we would put the Queen in yellow -- it is a good summer color," model-maker Paula Laughton said. "It was only by chance that we picked the right color."

Prince Philip appeared fascinated by the models and pointed out a couple of errors in the recreation of Buckingham Palace -- milkmen delivering to the wrong door and grey, rather than brown, horses pulling a royal carriage in the courtyard.

"He may be a grown-up kid himself because he was interested in the small fine details ... There was no doubt that he had been playing with Lego recently," said Legoland managing director Mads Ryder.

"He said 'We get milk that way, but not through that door'...I said we will get that altered and implemented immediately because that is the sort of inside information we'd never normally get."

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