Festivities of the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen Elizabeth are starting in London

The Queen Elizabeth II is to attend the Epsom Derby later, launching a four-day weekend of events for her Diamond Jubilee.

As BBC informs, the Queen is due to be driven down the course in an open-top car, there will be a Red Arrows display and Katherine Jenkins will sing the National Anthem.

The weekend’s main celebrations include the Thames pageant involving 1,000 boats on Sunday, and Monday’s concert in front of Buckingham Palace. There will be more events UK-wide to mark 60 years since the coronation.

On the final day of the weekend, the Queen will attend a national service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, before thousands of well-wishers are expected to line the route of a formal carriage procession back to Buckingham Palace.

The Royal Family will then make a balcony appearance at the palace.

On Friday, roads in central London were closed in the early hours as members of the armed forces and the Household Division were among 2,000 servicemen and women rehearsing the carriage procession from Westminster Hall.

And crews of the 1,000-strong flotilla that will escort the royal barge along the Thames on Sunday were briefed.

The start of the celebrations was signalled by a 21-gun salute from Royal Navy warship HMS Diamond, in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

And tributes were paid to the Queen on Friday by Prime Minister David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cameron said: ” What I see in Her Majesty is someone – in spite of the fact she’s been on the throne for 60 years, in spite of the fact that her and Prince Philip are now relatively elderly – there is an extraordinary level of physical energy, mental energy, and above all devotion to her people, to the institutions of this country, to the way our democracy works.”

Dr Williams issued a video tribute to the Queen, praising her as “someone who can be friendly, who can be informal, who can be extremely funny in private – and not everybody appreciates just how funny she can be – who is quite prepared to tease and to be teased, and who, while retaining her dignity always, doesn’t stand on her dignity in a conversation.”