The Prince and the Princess of Asturias, on Monday, began a two day visit to India in order to attend the opening of the new Instituto Cervantes and to support the presence of Spanish enterprises in India.

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On Tuesday Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia began their official engagements with a meeting with Spanish businessmen participants in the business conference Spain-India.  Prior the conference, the Prince and Princess had a brief meeting with Sanayangba Chubatoshi Jamir, governor of the state of Maharastra, and with representatives of Indian’s enterprises. Once the meeting finished, they presided over the conference Spain-India in the Crystal Room Central at the Taj Mahal Hotel

“India is a great and friendly country for which Spaniards feel a very special and growing admiration, respect and sympathy” Prince Felipe said, and added “For me personally, India bares great childhood memories and so I always feel very happy when ever I have the chance to come back, like today together with the Princess; even though this one is truly a very short visit with no time to enjoy the wonders India has to offer.”

At the evening the Prince and Princess of Asturias along with the Spanish ambassador in India, Ion de la Riva Guzmán de Frutos, met with the Spaniards living in Mumbai. Read more…

Paty Spanish Royals India, Official Visit, President Patil, Prince Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Princess Letizia, Princess of Asturias

Last week the Princess of Asturias attended a series of events during the Prince of Asturias Awards. As always her fashion choices were heavily scrutinised by royal watchers. During the three days of engagements, Letizia choose to wear the designs of royal favourite Felipe Varela.

On arrival in Asturias, Letizia combined a grey shift dress with a black Burberry coat and one of her favourite Burberry bags. image The simple dress was in the classic style which the Princess favours. image Later that evening at a musical concert, Letizia dazzled in a recycled Varela creation of a blue silk blouse worn with a short black skirt which had small blue daisy detailing on the hem. Her towering blue platforms were from Magrit. image On the following day, Letizia choose another plain light grey dress which was worn with a black belt and a favourite pair of suede Magrit platforms. image

At the award cermony in the evening Letizia wore a stunning midnight blue sequin encrusted dress with a simple cardigan. image Letizia accessorised with matching blue Magrit shoes and a clutch bag. image On the final day of engagements the Princess wore a casual tweed jacket from Felipe Varela which she clinched in at the waist with a tiny belt. Unusually the Princess wore flat boots at the event. image

For more information of the Prince of Asturias Awards 2009 go to this thread.

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On Friday 23rd, the 2009 Prince of Asturias Awards took place at Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo, Asturias.

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At 18:25, the Prince and Princess of Asturias arrived at theatre to preside over the ceremony. They were accompanied by Her Majesty Queen Sofia, who always attends the ceremony, and by HRH Princess Alia of Jordan, a special guest who for the first time attended the event. Both watched the ceremony form the royal box.

The Prince and Princess took their seats at the Presidential table along with the President of the Principality of Asturias, Mr. Vicente Alvarez Areces, and the President of the Prince of Asturias Foundation, Mr. Matias Rodriguez Inciarte. The ceremony started with the playing of the national anthem, played by the City of Oviedo Bagpipe Band. After a brief speech by the President of the Foundation; Ismail Kadaré, José Narro, Margaret Chan and Klaus Wowereit gave thanking speeches.

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A special and emotive one, was Ismail Kadaré speech. “During that glacial age when no-one traveled between my country and Spain, a solitary gentleman crossed the impassable frontier as often as he wished, spurning the world’s laws. You know who I am referring to: Don Quixote,” he said.

The award winners left their seats and walked to the President’s table, to be handed the Award by the Prince. Afterward the Prince gave his speech, considered one of his most important speeches of the year, in which he devoted a few words to this year laureates. HRH also give thanks to “the people of Asturias and to others parts of Spain, and event too many from abroad who accompany us to make this day a great celebration of culture and of concord”. Read more…

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This evening the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award grand presentation ceremony will take place. More than a thousand journalists from more than a hundred media stations worldwide are accredited to cover the XXIX Prince of Asturias Awards.

For those interested in watching the whole ceremony, it will be broadcast live on La 1 TV, and the 24 Hour Channel of TVE. Also foreign medias will broadcast it to their countries, the European Association of Public Service Broadcasters, Eurovision, the Television of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Euronews will also broadcast part of the grand presentation ceremony. The Mexican radio channel Grupo Radiocentro will also broadcast from the Campoamor Theatre in their programme “De una a tres”, chaired by journalist Jacobo Zabludovsky.

The Ceremony will start at 6:30pm, but prior that, at 6:15pm TVE will broadcast the departure from Reconquista Hotel of the prize winners and the Prince and Princess of Asturias to Campoamor Theatre, where the Ceremony will take place.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation has conferred its awards since 1981. The principal intention is to acknowledge scientific, technical, cultural, social, and humanitarian work carried out by institutions, individuals, and groups of people whose achievements are exemplary at an international level.

This year the laureates with the 2009 Prince of Asturias awards are:

Norman Foster, Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts

World Health Organization, Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation

David Attenborough, Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences

The National Autonomous University of Mexico, Prince of Asturias for Communication and Humanities

Martin Cooper and Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

Ismail Kadare, Prince of Asturias Award for Letters

Yelena Isinbayeva, Prince of Asturias Award for Sports

The City of Berlin, Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.

For more information please visit this thread

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 Today must have been a special day for Princess Letizia, as she returned to her homeland, Asturias. As you all surely remember, she was born in Oviedo, its capital. By the way, next Friday the Prince and the Princess of Asturias will be there again to attend the presentation ceremony of the 2009 Princes of Asturias Awards which is without doubt the major annual event they attend. Oviedo is already waiting for its Prince and Princess and its prizewinners…but everything in good time.

Today the Princess was in Candás, a beautiful fishing village in the north of Asturias famous for its Internatinal Sadine Festival (this blogger can testify to that) to visit the San Felix school. This centre is part of EducaRed program which is promoted by Fundación Telefónica and whose main goal is to apply Internet as a tool of innovation and pedagogic training among teachers, parents and pupils of primary and secondary education, baccalaureate and formative cycles of average degree, to improve the quality of their education and to encourage the equality of opportunities. Currently in Spain more than 12,000 schools are registered in this program.

See you in Oviedo next week!

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 Today, October 12, the Spanish Royal Family celebrated the Spanish National Day. King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia, the Prince and Princess of Asturias, Infanta Elena, and the Duke and Duchess of Palma (who are back from Washington for a few days) arrived early in the morning at Plaza de Lima in Madrid where a military parade is taking place.

Prior the event, His Majesty King Juan Carlos left a floral tribute at the Spanish flagpole in memory of soldiers killed aboard. At midday, the entire Royal Family will host a reception for the authorities at the Royal Palace.

For more information and pictures please visit this thread

Paty Spanish Royals Iñaki Urdangarín, Infanta Cristina, Infanta Elena, King Juan Carlos, National Day, Prince Felipe, Princess Letizia, Queen Sofia

 The Prince and Princess of Asturias arrived on Sunday in the USA to start a three-day visit to New Mexico and Chicago.

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Their Royal Highnesses visited on Monday the new facilities of the National Hispanic Cultural Centre in Albuquerque, and the Cervantes Institute, which was inaugurated by the Prince and Princess in their visit in 2004.

Afterward they went to New Mexico Univiersity (they already visited in 2004) where they had a meeting with the Advisory committee of the Prince of Asturias Endowed Chair at Zimmermans Library. The Prince of Asturias Endowed Chair, which this year goes to Fernándo Pérez-Gómez, was created in honor of the heir to the Spanish Crown, and its aim is to promote collaboration between Spanish and U.S. scholars by “bringing a preeminent Spanish scientist to the University of New Mexico to engage in teaching and research in information science and technology.”

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At the end of the day Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia attended a dinner that New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and his wife Barbara Richardson hosted in their honor in their official residence in Santa Fe. The dinner was also attended by the First Lady of Mexico, Margarita Zabala.

On Tuesday, Felipe and Letizia attend the major event of their visit to New Mexico, the City of Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary celebrations. As heir to the Spanish Crown, Prince Felipe, declared his joy and honour to represent Spain, together with the Princess, in the ceremonies that commemorate the Founding of the capital of “this beautiful and fascinating” State of New Mexico. Read more…

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 Princess Letizia has hit a high note fashion-wise. Earlier this year, the princess was named to Vanity Fair magazine’s Best Dressed List for 2009, where she came in at number 2. However, Vanity Fair isn’t the only non fashion-focused magazine to notice Letizia. Time magazine has recently featured her in an article that focuses on her fashions.

Since the announcement of her engagement to Crown Prince Felipe of Spain in 2003, the world has taken notice of Letizia. The former Letizia Ortiz worked as a journalist before her marriage to Felipe. Her style often reflected this at the beginning of their marriage. Letizia often relied on serious-looking business suits for public engagements. Over the years, as she has grown more comfortable with her role as a princess, Letizia has become more fashionable. Her wardrobe features the work of many Spanish designers, from the affordable Zara to the more exclusive Felipe Varela. The princess has become known for her love of platform shoes and form-fitting silhouettes. Her clothing has become brighter, and she has steered herself away from the “news anchor” look of 2003. The article in Time quotes Spanish journalist Maria Jose Iglesias, who says,”she has done more for Spanish fashion in the last five years than decades of catwalks and advertisments”.

To see more royal fashions, including those of Princess Letizia, please visit this thread.

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King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Asturias (the two gentlemen with a new look, btw), hosted Friday night, the traditional farewell dinner with representatives of the Baleares government, at Almudaina Palace. The Royal Family is in the habit of spending summer vacations in Marivent Palace at Mallorca , where they arrived at the beginning of August this year.

Photo from Daylife

As usual the Prince of Asturias participated in the Copa del Rey Audi Mapfre Sailing Cup in its 28th edition which ended after six days of races for the seven different classes which took part in the regatta. On August 8 the king and Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia presented the trophies of this 28 Copa del Rey Audi Mapfre. The award ceremony took place at Ses Voltes gardens, next to the Cathedral of Palma.

During their vacations we had the opportunity to see Infanta Leonor and Infanta Sofia walking on the streets of Palma de Mallorca. The Prince and Princess wanted to give the appearance of normality in the island after the terrible terrorist attack some days before in the city.

Image from TRF avatar collection

But this has been also a dynamic vacation for the little infantas as they attended their first rock concert! Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia took them to Jaume Anglada, team-mate of Prince Felipe, charity concert at Palma Club Nautico. Jauma’s performance is a tradition during the sailing competition. He has performed since 1995. But the last one was in aid of Alex Foundation, which competes with a ship called “Alex Rumbo a ti” whose crew is formed of professional competitors and physically disabled people, so maybe Felipe and Letizia thought that it was a good event for Leonor and Sofia to attend.

On August 26 King Juan Carlos met with the Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero; afterward the Queen and the Prime Minister’s wife, Sonsoles Espinosa, joined them in a private dinner.

The, royal family will be back at work this week. On Wednesday the king will meet with Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority. Among others things the Prince and the Princess of Asturias will attend the opening of the “Parc Científic” of Valencia University.

If you want to know what the Royal Family did during summer, visit this thread.

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 After two days of intense diplomatic activity, yesterday Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia had time to make cultural and charity visits and also meet with others royals.

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They went to the National Museum of Bucharest where they visited an important medieval Exhibition. Afterwards they visited Centro San Marcelino Champanat of Los Hermanos Maristas, a center in Bucharest that developed a program to help children and youth.

San Marcelino Champanat was a French priest who founded the Hermanos Maristas  in 1817. They are a religious order consecrated to God, whose motto is “follow Jesus in the Way that Mary did”. Maristics Brothers live in the community and are dedicated in a special way to the education of children and youth, specially the most neglected ones.

Maristics Brothers settled in Romania in 1998 and in 2004 they opened their first charity house with the aim of taking children from the streets and helping with their education. Currently 4300 Maristics Brothers work worldwide.

At the end of their visit to San Marcelino Center, Felipe and Letizia had a private meeting with Prince Radu and Princess Margarita of Romania at Elisabeta Palace.

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