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The Age
Frankston's Danish pastry supply could dry up today when baker Erik Hermansen abandons his ovens for lunch with Denmark's royal couple.
Mr Hermansen, who runs the Viking Danish Bakery, and his daughter, Renee, were "tickled pink" to get an invitation to a state reception for Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, hosted by Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and his wife, Terry.
The royal visitors are nearing the end of a two-week Australian tour. Melburnians can meet them at Federation Square at 11am where they will launch "Square to Square", a live video link with Copenhagen.
They will then take a boat down the Yarra to the Docklands reception centre at South Wharf.
"My daughter was tickled pink when we got the invite," Mr Hermansen said. "She is a kindergarten teacher and will be able to go back and tell all her kids about it."
Mr Hermansen, 58, arrived in Australia 35 years ago and has run the bakery for six years.
"We make traditional Danish pastries and the really heavy rye bread," he said. "And we import specialities such as rollmop herrings and Danish fried onion."
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About 2000 Danes live in Victoria and many older Danes have settled in Melbourne's bayside and peninsula suburbs.
Melbourne's Danish Club president, Preben Hansen, will also attend the reception. The Middle Park club has nearly 500 members.
"Mary is No. 1, not only here but over there (in Denmark)," Mr Hansen said.
Melbourne Lord Mayor John So will present the couple with a kangaroo and emu-leather-bound book containing wedding congratulations from Melburnians.
Danish honorary consul-general Jan Ravnholt said Melbourne nearly missed out on seeing the couple.
"Officially Melbourne was not in the program," he said. "But we managed to sway them, partly because Melbourne held the biggest celebration in Australia for their wedding."
Nice photo of the couple from the Herald Sun in Melbourne.
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DENMARK'S Crown Prince Frederik and Australian-born Princess Mary chatted to Australians living in Copenhagen by videolink from Melbourne today.
Several thousand well-wishers crammed into every possible vantage point at Federation Square to welcome the popular royal couple.
Fans of the royal's waved small Australian and Danish flags when they arrived shortly after 11am.
Looking relaxed as usual, Mary wore a three-quarter length cream coat with gold detail over an olive green dress topped by a matching green hat with cream brim and feather.
Frederik wore a light grey suit.
After being greeted by Premier Steve Bracks the royal couple launched the continuous video conference link to Copenhagen's Town Hall Square (Radhusspladsen).
The royal couple then stopped to talk and meet the crowd, which included about 30 students and parents from the Danish school in Toorak.
Zachary Matys, 8, gave Mary some red roses while his brother Oliver, 5, presented her with Fruit Tingles, which she has been craving while living in Denmark.
Their mother Anette said the boys had been talking about the royal visit all week.
"It's lovely to have a royal visit," she said.
"We're very proud of being Danish and this brings Denmark closer and makes their (the boys) cultural heritage more pronounced."
Also in the crowd was Kathryn McGrory and her daughter Charlotte who gave the princess a picture she had drawn of Mary's wedding day.
The royal couple attended a state reception on the banks of the Yarra River before flying to Mary's hometown of Hobart this afternoon.
In a departure from schedule, Princess Mary delivered a speech to launch the Square to Square Project instead of her husband.
The Crown Princess thanked the crowd for their warm welcome and reminisced briefly about her time in Melbourne, her first home away from home.
The Crown Princess and Prince then boarded a boat to take them down Melbourne's Yarra River to a state reception.
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Hobart Mercury
Welome home, Mary
By HEATHER LOW CHOY
10mar05
HOBART will throw Tasmania's own royal, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, a homecoming to remember today.
Thousands of well-wishers are likely to line the streets to welcome the local girl who will one day reign over Europe's oldest kingdom.
Princess Mary has not been home since marrying the heir to the Danish throne, Crown Prince Frederik, last May.
She will arrive in Hobart's city centre shortly after 4.30pm to find as many as 5000 Tasmanians cheering her on and the Danish flag flying above Parliament House in her honour.
The royal couple will be chauffeured into town almost immediately after touching down at Hobart Airport at 4pm today.
Their official visit will last just more than 24 hours. But there is talk that Princess Mary may be looking to kick off her week-long Tasmanian holiday a little early.
Speculation abounds that the former Taroona schoolgirl could relax upon arrival and enjoy some hometown hospitality after an arduous and very formal national tour.
The Danish media say a rousing welcome from her home state could elicit an emotional response from Princess Mary.
They are expecting that she will be considerably more relaxed here than she has been on the royal tour to date.
"We think she might not be able to help but dispense with formality and interact with the general public spontaneously," a Danish television identity said.
"Throughout the tour so far, we've seen that she's wanted to do that, but something's been holding her back. Perhaps she's been under orders from the palace.
"Here in Tasmania, at home, I think we'll see more who she is and less who she's been told she should be."
Police say while security around the Danish royals will be tight, there will be scope for Princess Mary and Prince Frederik to engage with the Tasmanian public.
"They seem a fairly relaxed couple, so we're planning for anything, depending on what they might want to do," said Acting Inspector David Richardson of Tasmania Police.
He suggested that well-wishers wanting to greet Princess Mary this afternoon position themselves somewhere along her inner-city motorcade route.
"The best possible opportunity to see the Princess today is going to be tonight when the motorcade proceeds along the waterfront and Salamanca, and then through the city," Acting Insp Richardson said.
The royal couple's motorcade will depart shortly after 5pm from Hunter St, where Princess Mary is to open a porcelain exhibition at the University of Tasmania's School of Art.
Acting Insp Richardson warned commuters the Princess's motorcade would travel through the city from 5.30pm to 5.45pm, or thereabouts.
While a green-light corridor would minimise delays, people looking to avoid delays entirely were advised to "leave work a little early, or a little late".
"We remind the public we're going to control the intersections and there will be delays," Acting Insp Richardson said.
He said he did know whether the royal couple would have the windows of their car wound up or down as they travelled Hobart's city streets.
Acting Insp Richardson nominated the public viewing area in Hunter St as a good location for people hoping to see Mary from top to toe.
The Danish royals will arrive at the Plimsoll Gallery in Hunter St about 4.40pm, directly from the airport.
Fans hoping to greet Mary at the airport would probably be disappointed as access would be limited, Acting Insp Richardson warned.
A small delegation will formally welcome Princess Mary off her private flight from Melbourne, including Governor William Cox and Premier Paul Lennon.
The Premier's office was secretive yesterday when asked what the state's official gift to Princess Mary and Prince Frederik would be.
"It won't be a bronze tiger," a spokesman said, referring to the sculpture Tasmanian Senator Paul Calvert presented to the couple in Canberra yesterday.
The motorcade through Hobart will wind up at Government House, where the couple will spend the night.
They will be guests of honour at a state dinner to be hosted by the Governor and his wife, Jocelyn.
On Friday morning, the couple will hold two press conferences - one in English, one in Danish - at Government House.
At 9.20am they will plant a tree in the stately mansion's grounds, and then tour the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from 9.45am.
The Princess and Prince will then fly by helicopter to the Port Arthur Historic Site, arriving at 11.10am.
After travelling back by road, the royals will be guests of honour at two events at Wrest Point - a state reception for 1200 guests at 4.30pm and then a charity ball at 8.15pm.
Once they leave the ball, their Tasmanian holiday kicks off. It is expected they will spend much of their private time at a remote lodge with Mary's family.
March 10, 2005: Prince Frederik and Princess Mary of Denmark visit the Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia.
Mary looks wonderful as usual. I like the hat with the little feather and the jacket quite a lot, and, ofcourse the dress from the Copenhagen Fashion Show is a classic. The only qualm I have with the whole ensemble is the length of the jacket compared to the dress. I just feel that the jacket should be longer or at least up to the hem of the dress underneath.
I think the colour of the skirt is lovely with the coat. Thanks for the latest pics, pdas. These photo agencies are fast! It's now just after 3 o'clock in the afternoon in Melbourne, so this took place just over 3 hours ago. Wish I could have been there :) But seeing the photos is really great.
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Stuff.co.nz
Charles forgotten as Australia's Mary-mania grows
10 March 2005
CANBERRA: Prince who? A fleeting visit to Australia by Britain's Prince Charles has already been forgotten, but the former British colony remains gripped with royal fever as homegrown Crown Princess Mary of Denmark enchants the nation's capital. Australia's Parliament House was abuzz yesterday as staff deserted their offices to catch a glimpse of Mary and her husband Crown Prince Frederik, who have drawn much larger crowds around Australia than Britain's embattled heir-to-the-throne Charles.
Some have suggested that Britain's middle-aged Prince Charles - who is battling waning popularity over his impending wedding to divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles - should follow the lead of Frederik and marry an Australian.
"Well done! You showed a lot of sense picking an Australian," an elderly well-wisher told Frederik when the couple arrived in Canberra on Tuesday.
Charles' five-day visit to Australia last week was completely overshadowed by the overlapping tour of Mary and Frederik, who married in May last year after a fairytale romance that began with a chance meeting in a Sydney bar during the 2000 Olympics.
"At times your life must be scary, but yer doing us proud, Tassie Mary. Sassy-lass you've brought home no frog, yer Prince Fred is better than a kelpie dog," one well-wisher penned on a poster to greet Mary and Frederik when they arrived in Canberra.
Mary is from Tasmania state and a kelpie is a sheepdog. The princess, who was apprehensive about her first visit home since her wedding, has said she has been overwhelmed by the reception the couple have received in Australia. The Canberra Times newspaper yesterday declared her "The people's princess".
Thousands of people gathered at the Australian war memorial, where the couple laid a wreath on Tuesday, while another 500 turned out to see the young couple yesterday at the National Museum of Australia. Mary has also been inundated with packets of "Fruit Tingles" after saying in a television interview that the fizzy candies were one of the things she missed most about Australia.
"You wouldn't believe how many packets of these I've been given," Mary said during a visit to the Australian National University.
Later on Wednesday Mary and Frederik will feed kangaroos at Government House - the home of Governor General Michael Jeffery, the representative of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in Australia - before meeting Prime Minister John Howard for afternoon tea. Charles completed his first visit to Australia in more than a decade on Saturday, when he flew to New Zealand. He will head to Fiji on Thursday and then return to Britain to prepare for his April 8 wedding.
Mary inspects her bouquet de Fruit Tingles.
Photo: Andrew Taylor
A Canberra father cleared out the Fruit Tingles in milk bars around his suburb and sat up until the early hours of yesterday fashioning them into a bouquet to catch a princess's eye.
It worked like a charm. Princess Mary was sweeping all before her as she visited the Australian National University in Canberra when the Fruit Tingles stopped her in mid-regal flow.
"Oh! How lovely," she said delightedly, spying Sian Gore Phillips, 5, standing at her father Glenn's side with her fruity offering. Ever since Mary confessed to a yearning for the lollies as one of the things she missed about Australia, on Andrew Denton's ABC TV program Enough Rope, she has been showered with them. They continued to rain down yesterday as Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary were in Canberra for the second leg of their Australian tour. Even at the Australian War Memorial, the deluge persisted with the princess telling wellwishers conspiratorially: "You wouldn't believe how many Fruit Tingles I've got." But Sian's astounding "bouquet de Fruit Tingles" took the prize.
Her father said: "I showed the security people straight away when we got here. I didn't want Sian to have the bouquet confiscated as a terrorist threat or something." http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/...160829978.html
Polfoto 10-03-2005 Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark walk to their boat before embarking on a cruise on the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, March 10, 2005. (AP Photo/Ryan Pierse, Pool)
To say Princess Mary got a rapturous welcome upon her return to Tasmania would be an understatement. A huge crowd of well-wishers, along with leading politicians and community leaders, turned out to greet the pretty royal when she arrived back in her hometown of Hobart on Thursday morning.
Mary was serenaded by the Derwent Valley Concert Band, which played at her wedding last year, when she stepped out of an Australian Air Force jet and onto the tarmac. She could barely have heard the music, though, because hundreds of children from a local primary school were cheering for all they were worth.
Crown Prince Frederik stood back to let his wife, a picture of 1950s glamour in a gold and silver embroidered jacket with chic hat, accept the adulation. The moment had been a long time coming - the people of Tasmania have been looking forward to Mary's homecoming ever since she made her vows last May.
The couple's arrival in Hobart marks the final stop of a week-long tour of Australia. Their official engagements will come to a sweet end tomorrow, when they attend the Save The Children Chocolate Lovers charity ball, but they are then planning to stay on for a private holiday. Mary's fellow Tasmanians, meanwhile, are just happy to have their favourite daughter back for a few days.
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