Queen Sofía returns from Miami in time to see King Juan Carlos at the Zarzuela

A private visit to the United States this week has removed Queen Sofia from the political and media turmoil over the return to Spain of King Juan Carlos, this Thursday or Friday morning, after almost two years in Abu Dhabi.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
18 May 2022 Wednesday 11:40
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Queen Sofía returns from Miami in time to see King Juan Carlos at the Zarzuela

A private visit to the United States this week has removed Queen Sofia from the political and media turmoil over the return to Spain of King Juan Carlos, this Thursday or Friday morning, after almost two years in Abu Dhabi. Sofía traveled to Miami on Tuesday to coincide with the arrival of the Spanish Navy ship Juan Sebastián Elcano and to preside over the events organized by the New York institute that bears her name for the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation. But King Felipe's mother will be back in Madrid on Sunday, Zarzuela sources report, so she could be seen with her husband, King Juan Carlos, on Monday of next week.

The king emeritus will be in Sanxenxo this weekend, where he will attend, predictably in the company of the infanta Elena, the regattas of the 6-Meter Sailing Cup of Spain, as explained today by his friend Pedro Campos, businessman and president of the Club Nautical of Sanxenxo (Pontevedra). The competition ends on Sunday. but King Juan Ccarlos will pass through Madrid to meet his son, King Felipe, before leaving Spain, as they agreed last Sunday in the telephone conversation they had.

In Miami, Queen Sofía presides this Wednesday at the Bayfront Park pier the solemn lowering of the flag on the Juan Sebastián Elcano ship, as the first of several commemorative acts of the fifth centenary of the end of the first circumnavigation of the Earth. The queen has traveled to this city in southern Florida to "be present in a personal capacity" in the activities organized by the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute for this commemoration, reported La Zarzuela.

In addition to Queen Sofía, Rear Admiral Santiago Barber López, secretary of the Commission of the Spanish Ministry of Defense for the Commemoration of the V Centenary of the First Circumnavigation of the World, will attend the events.

The "Elcano" arrives in Miami after making stops in San Juan de Puerto Rico and Havana and will remain until Sunday, May 22. Among the activities organized by the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute in New York is a round table entitled "The first globalization" this Wednesday, which will be chaired by Queen Sofía at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami (PAMM). Professors Ida Altman, from the University of Florida, Carla Rahn Phillips, from the University of Minnesota, Kris Lane, from Tulane University, and Richard Kagan, from Johns Hopkins University, will participate.

Likewise, the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute has organized for Friday, May 20, a presentation of the digital version of the Spanish Biographical Dictionary (DB~e) on board the "Juan Sebastián Elcano", also with the presence of the queen. In this act, Susan Parker, executive director of the Historical Society of Saint Augustine (Florida), Jaime Olmedo, technical director of the Spanish Biographical Dictionary of the Royal Academy of History, and, by video conference, Carmen Iglesias, director of said institution will intervene. .

Rear Admiral Barber will participate on May 20 in an Act in Memory of the Navy that will take place in the Plaza de la Marina Española, located in a park on the shores of the Bay of Biscay, near the pier where the training ship will be moored. On board the "Elcano" there will be a mass and a swearing-in ceremony, as well as a lunch with US Navy authorities.

On the 21st, Queen Sofía will preside on board the solemn lowering of the Explorer's Club flag, which has flown on the "Elcano" for three years, in a ceremony attended by the Spanish ambassador in Washington, Santiago Cabanas.


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