Habsburgs in Metz and Nancy

Photo: H&PB

Archduke Imre, oldest son of Princess Marie-Astrid, and his wife, Archduchess Kathleen, visited the French cities of Metz and Nancy this weekend. Both Metz and Nancy lie within the Lorraine region, one of the ancestral home of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. 

In Metz, Archduke Imre and Archduchess Kathleen participated in a conference about Empress Zita of Austria, Imre's great-grandmother, and in Nancy they took part in an "imperial journey" organised by the association Présence du souvenir bourbonien en Lorraine. The event, which was organised in the memory of Blessed Emperor Karl of Austria and his wife, Empress Zita, included a mass, a luncheon and a conference. Another Habsburg guest at the event was Archduchess Isabella, Countess Czarnocki-Lucheschi, younger sister of Prince Lorenz of Belgium. A few pictures of the event in Nancy can be found here and here.

Source: H&PB

Father and Son in Sochi

Photo: Contactmusic.com

As you probably know, Grand Duke Henri and Prince Félix are currently in Sochi where they have taken in a few Olympic events yesterday and today. While photographers spotted them at the figure skating venue yesterday, the father and son duo watched the men's alpine skiing downhill event today. For more pictures, have a look here, here and here.

"Public Debt? Cheat the Citizen!"

Photo: 1 FL TV

"Public Debt? Cheat the Citizen!" was the topic of an essay competition by the European Center of Austrian Economics Foundation (ECAEF) that resulted in the awarding of the Vernon Smith Prize in Liechtenstein earlier this week. Prince Hans-Adam II, his brother Prince Philipp and their cousin Prince Michael attended the award ceremony. Both Prince Philipp and Prince Michael are members of the board of directors of the ECAEF and Prince Hans-Adam has also been long involved with the foundation and so he was the one who actually handed out the award.

1 FL TV has a video about the event which includes comments by Prince Philipp and Prince Michael starting at around 5:10. For more information about the Vernon Smith Prize, have a look here.

Source: 1 FL TV

Royals at Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images Europe / Zimbio

Grand Duke Henri and Prince Félix of Luxembourg as well as Princess Nora of Liechtenstein were in the Russian city of Sochi earlier this evening to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The Grand Duke and his second son brought along not a Luxembourgish flag but one featuring the Roude Léiw. The flag with the red lion, who was proposed but declined to become the new national flag a few years ago, is very popular with Luxembourgish sportsfans, probably as chances of the usual confusion with the Dutch flag are quite low.

Zimbio has a gallery of a lot of visuals of the opening ceremony and if you must, have a look here. In difference, Getty Images makes it much easier though the pictures have watermarks. Not sure if they have spotted Princess Nora but if they did, the pictures will likely be uploaded to here.

Grand Duke Henri was also on hand yesterday to welcome Luxembourg's only athlete Kari Peters to Sochi yesterday.

Source: Getty Images

Friday Flashback: Octave of Our Lady of Luxembourg in 1916

Grand Duchess Maria-Ana and Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde, as well as Princess Hilda and Princess Sophie behind them, on their way from the palais grand-ducal to the Cathédrale Notre-Dame for the celebrations of the Octave of Our Lady of Luxembourg in 1916.

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Grand Ducal Scientists For A Day *

Photo: Marc Wilwert / Luxemburger Wort / Wort.lu

Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie were in Esch-sur-Alzette today to visit the University of Luxembourg's "House of Biomedicine". It is run by one of the two university's interdisciplinary research centres, the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB), whose research focuses on the fields of Experimental Neurobiology, Computational Biology and Metabolomics. The LCSB is situated in the Cité des Sciences in Esch-Belval. The research centre was also visited by Grand Duke Henri and then Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands during her state visit to Luxembourg in 2012.

The occasion of the Hereditary Grand Duke and the Hereditary Grand Duchess' visit was to open the "Scienteens Lab", where Luxembourg high-school classes can visit the LCSB for a day and participate in research workshops in the fields of molecular biology and bioinformatics. The couple, who was accompanied by the minister of children and youth, for higher education and research as well as national education Claude Meisch, even got their hands on some science themselves.

More pictures of the Grand Ducal lab openers and scientists are available at Wort and the cour. RTL has a video.


Source: University of Luxembourg, Wort

More From Sochi

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images Europe / Zimbio

After arriving to Sochi and having being greeted by Russian president Vladimir Putin yesterday, the 126th IOC Session kicked off today and this time around, we even have visuals of both IOC members that regularly feature on this blog. While Grand Duke Henri can be spotted in the background of a pic of Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Princess Nora can be seen talking to Prince Albert II of Monaco. The four royals and their fellow IOC members discussed topics surrounding the "Uniqueness of the Olympic Games", "Athletes at the heart of the Olympic Movement" and "Olympism in action: keeping Olympism alive 365 days a year" at the Radisson Blu hotel in Sochi today. Later this week, the Grand Duke will be joined by his second son, Prince Félix, to attend the opening ceremony as well as a number of competitions together.

Getty Images has more pictures of Grand Duke Henri.

Source: Zimbio, IOC

Art for Children

Photo: We Help You

Last Friday, January 31st that is, Hereditary Princess Sophie participated in the handing over of a cheque benefitting the organisation Kids Kidney Care and the Nephrology of the children's hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. The money was raised through Art for Children, a charity event where a broad range of donated artworks is sold in favour of disadvantaged children in a silent auction. The Hereditary Princess has been the patron of the event organised by the organisation We Help You for a few years. You might remember that she also attended the actual charity event last year as well.

Source: We Help You

Sochi Calling

Photo: AP / Luxemburger Wort / Wort.lu

Grand Duke Henri, and very likely also Princess Nora though I have not spotted her on any of the (admittedly very few) pictures I looked at, are already in Sochi where they took part in the 126th Olympic session today. Both of them are IOC members just like their fathers were before them. 

According to the IOC's official website "the IOC Session, which is the general meeting of the members of the IOC and is its supreme decision-making body, will feature discussions about the future of the Olympic Movement and a strategic roadmap, the so-called Olympic Agenda 2020, reports from different areas of the IOC’s activities, a presentation by Sochi 2014 on the final preparations for the Games, the election of new IOC members, and votes on positions on the IOC Executive Board."

Source: IOC, Wort