Dogs, Princes and More

I love the time around Luxembourg's National Day because it's always full of surprises like the photocalls at Berg or the Parc Merveilleux last year, or Prince Sebastien and Princess Alexandra being present for official events that are not the Octave or the National Day itself. This year is no exception; Prince Louis recently opened a museum and the future Hereditary Grand Duchess was attended the garden parties held after the National Day. But that's not all, the cour had another card up their sleeve.

Today, the Luxembourgish Red Cross, whose patron the Grand Duchess is, paid a visit to the Château de Berg to let their rescue dog squad show off their skills and the grand ducal family came out in (almost) full force to see how good the dogs are.

Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and his fiancée Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy, Prince Félix looking slightly lost between all those couples (next time, just give me a call), as well as Prince Louis, Princess Tessy and their adorable two sons Gabriel and Noah ventured out of the castle. Gabriel and Noah were even allowed to play 'victims' by hiding in the large gardens of Berg and the dogs had to search for them.

Pictures of the adventures in the gardens of the home of the grand ducal family, can be found over at Tageblatt, Wort and RTL, while videos are available at RTL (starting 22:41) and Wort.


Source: Wort

Garden Parties Including a Surprise Guest

During the last days, the grand ducal couple has hosted two garden parties at the Château de Berg which including a pleasant surprise for (at least) one of them: the Hereditary Grand Duke's fiancée made one of her rare appearances. Together with Guillaume, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy happily chatted with their guests in- and outside of the palace in the gardens. Pictures are available on the Facebook page of Belgian TV show Place Royale.

They'll also have a report on the whole National Day including the garden parties in their show on RTL-TVI next Saturday. Sadly, it's usually geo-blocked and thus not viewable for people outside of Belgium.


Source: Place Royale (Facebook page)

Fleeting Visit to Rio de Janeiro

Last week Grand Duke Henri fit a short visit to Brazil into his busy schedule to attend the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. During the course of the conference, during which leaders from all over the world talked the matters of poverty reduction, social equity and environmental protection, the Grand Duke held a speech.

One picture each are available on the website of the cour and of the UN.


Source: United Nations

The National Day

Yesterday was Luxembourg's National Day celebrating the official birthday of the Grand Duke (his actual one is in April) and the whole Grand Duchy in general.

Present for the occassion were the birthday boy himself Grand Duke Henri, his lovely wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, their oldest son and heir-apparent Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, Prince Felix, Prince Louis and his wife Princess Tessy as well as Princess Alexandra. Prince Sebastien was probably busy at uni while it was said that Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy, the fiancée of Guillaume, did not attend because she is not an official member of the family yet.

The day's celebrations started of with a Te Deum at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame celebrated by archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, followed by a (not only) military parade in the Avenue de la Liberté. The parade is traditionally only attended by the Grand Duke, the Grand Duchess and the Hereditary Grand Duke. In the evening a gala was held at the palais.

Grand Duchess Maria Teresa was dressed in an outfit by Natan and a hat by Jane Taylor. Princess Tessy also opted for a Jane Taylor hat while she wore a dress by Prada. Princess Alexandra wore a pink Carolina Herrera dress with a fascinator by Fabienne Delvigne.
Most notable in change in men's clothes: the Grand Duke and the Hereditary Grand Dukechanged their sashes between the religious service and the parade. While the two wore the (orange-coloured) Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau in church, they changed into the (green and yellow) insignia of the Order of the Oak Crown for the parade. Princes Félix and Louis were their usual dashing selves.

The last couple of years, RTL uploaded both the videos of the Te Deum and of the military parade afterwards to their website. They haven't done so yet but I wouldn't give up my hope not just yet. Nevertheless, you can relive yesterday's most important moments in this thirty-minute special by RTL.

Pictures of the Te Deum can be found over at Wort, Revue and Lëtzebuerger Journal. RTL offers an extensive gallery of 685 visuals of the military parade, while Wort has a small one as does Revue. Combined galleries are available at PPE, the cour, Tageblatt, GettyImages #1, GettyImages #2, Daylife, Tom Wagner and APA Picturedesk.

Naturally, RTL covered the National Day in their evening news, Wort also has a video covering today's events.


Source: RTL

A Speech and Two Visits

At 4pm this afternoon, the National Day celebrations started with the changing of the guard in front of the palais, while the whole day the last preperations for today's and tomorrow's event were made.

During his speech for the National Day, prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker mentioned Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy, wishing them all the best in the world and saying that he and the whole country are very much looking forward to their wedding later this year, and that it will be a celebration for the whole country. In case you'd like to watch it, here you go.

The first official event for the grand ducal family was the traditional visit of the Hereditary Grand Duke to Esch-sur-Alzette, the Grand Duchy's second largest town. Sadly, he was not accompanied by his fiancée. But instead he brought his sister Princess Alexandra along, which is just as beautiful.

The two were welcomed by the city's mayor at the Place de la Résistance where they laid down a wreath. Afterwards they made their way through Esch and finally ended up on the balcony of the town hall. Pictures can be found over at Wort #1, Wort #2 and Tageblatt. Short glimpses of them can be seen in RTL's evening news (starting at 14:07), they will have more footage tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa visited Differdange where they watched a parade and mingled with their subjects on the fair. Photos are available at Wort.

As of yet, I can't find pictures of tonight's torchlight procession but I'm sure that will change soon.


Sources: Wort, RTL

How to Watch the National Day Live

Tomorrow is Luxembourg's biggest day of the year and of course RTL will broadcast the main events live. A livestream of RTL's programme is available on their website. The broadcast will start at 10am CET (in case you are in a different time zone, you can convert the time over here) with the usual suspects as the commentators, namely Dan Spogen and Pierre Dillenburg.

The actual Te Deum starts at 10:30 and usually lasts for a little more than half an hour. At 11:15am, RTL will rebroadcast the documentary about the Hereditary Grand Duke that they made for his 30th birthday last year. Half an hour later the military parade will start and will also be shown live.

In case you don't have time to watch the actual events but nevertheless would like to catch up on the most important bits, RTL has a special on at 7pm covering the day's events in a nutshell. If you want it even shorter, you can tune in to their daily news at 7:30pm.

I'll be live tweeting the events.


Source: RTL

Guillaume Visits Kräizbierg

After stepping to from the post of the president of the Fondation Kräizbierg, the Hereditary Grand Duke became the Honorary President of the foundation that helps disabled people. In this capacity he took part in the latest graduation ceremony and while he was there he thanked the staff for their great work. For a picture have a look on the website of the cour.


Source: CGD

A Visit to Baden-Baden

The day before yesterday, Princess Sibilla and Prince Guillaume attended the Golden Rose award at Baden-Baden, Southern Germany. Every year the awards go to the best roses in different categories. Interestingly, a rose named for the beautiful princess won one of the awards a couple of years ago.

Sadly, my technical incapacity strikes yet again and linking the pictures just won't work. So if you'd like to see them anyway, just venture over to Newscom and type in (or simply copy and paste) "Guillaume of Luxemburg Baden Baden", it will do the trick and three goodies should come up.
 
 Source: Newscom

Yet Another Anniversary Celebration

On June 14th, the Belgian Degroof Bank celebrated their 25th anniversary of being present in the Grand Duchy and the Grand Duke's brother Prince Jean was on hand to celebrate with them. Among many other positions in the financial world, Prince Jean is a member of the Luxembourgish part of the Degroof Banque. For pictures have a look at Paperjam who covered the event.



Source: PaperJam.lu

Two Days of Wedding Celebrations

The Cour Grand-Ducale has released some details concerning the upcoming wedding of The Hereditary Grand Duke.

Friday

The civil ceremony will take place at 3:30pm on Friday, October 19 at Hôtel de Ville (City Hall). It was previously confirmed that Xavier Bettle, the mayor of Luxembourg City, will officiate the civil union.

The public will have full access to Place Guillaume, in order to view the couple and royal guests.

At 7:30pm a gala will be held at the Grand Ducal Palace.

At some point during the afternoon, the couple will observe tradition and meet with representatives from local youth organisations.

Saturday

As expected, The Hereditary Grand Duke and Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy will celebrate their religious wedding at the fabulous Cathédral Notre-Dame. The service will begin at 11am. As previously confirmed, Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich will preform the religious ceremony.

The public is invited to line the streets near the cathedral in order to view the couple and their guests

The City of Luxembourg has organized some sort of public address that will take place at some point after the wedding.

A sumptuous reception will begin at the Grand Ducal Palace at 1pm.

The Luxembourg press has highlighted that The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expected to attend the wedding celebrations. While this will draw additional international attention to Luxembourg and the wedding, these guests will completely outshine the bridal couple. I, for one, will not be offended if they are unable to attend.

No further details were provided. Additional details inserted by us here at Luxarazzi. 


Source: Wort