Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Celebrating a Round Birthday in Romania **

Grand Duke Jean wasn't the only former royal head of state who celebrated his 90th birthday this year. The former King of the Romanians Michael, also known as Mihai in Romania, was born in the same year as Luxembourg's former Grand Duke.

King Michael succeeded to the throne at the tender age of six, three years later he became crown prince again when his father was proclaimed king by the Parliament. In 1940, when his father was sent into exile, Michael was crowned King of Romania and remained so until December 1947 when the monarchy was abolished; just to give you a tinily short summary what happened in the first 27 years of the King's life.

There was a string of events to celebrate King Micheal's decadal birthday, among them a speech in parliament. But for us Lux-lovers it isn't as much of an interest as the celebration concert at The National Opera that took place in the evening hours of the 25th of October, which was yesterday in the time zone in which Romania is situated while it is still earlier today for me ;)


A dashing Grand Duke Henri was at hand to celebrate the 90th birthday of the husband of his grandfather's niece (that are royal family relations for you; and only the fastest I could come up with at the moment as I'm sure there are many more...). Meanwhile, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa stayed in the Grand Duchy to attend a workshop / conference about male and female variety in the entrepreneurship.

Instead Henri's youngest brother Prince Guillaume and his lovely wife Sibilla made their way to the Romanian capital Bucharest to celebrate. Also in attendance was the Grand Duke's sister Princess Margaretha of Liechtenstein with her sister-in-law Princess Isabelle.

Meanwhile, you can have a look at the following photo agencies to see the other royal guests and the man of honour himself: Getty Images and, for basically the same pictures without watermarks, have a look at Daylife. Belga does have a small gallery as well, hopefully it will be filled with more pictures in the hours to come. A group picture including the Grand Duke as well as a picture of him in the opera next to Queen Sofia can be found here.


Sources: Me, Daylife, jurnalul.ro, Familia Regala

1 comment:

  1. Grand Duke Henri and Princess Margaretha were also present at the brunch in the Elisabeta Palace in Bucarest.

    You can find a photo of Grand Duke : http://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-brunch-photos.html
    Here, the photo of Princess Margarehta : http://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-brunch-photos.html (She was in compagny with her cousin, Princess Anne of Ligne - daughter of Princess Alix of Luxembourg and Prince Antoine of Ligne - and her cousin's husband, Knight Charles de Fabribeckers de Cortils et Grâce.

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