The Royal Courts/Les Cours Royales: Queen Sonja

Queen Sonja open a new faculty in Bergen

Her Majesty the Queen was present at the opening of the faculty for art, music and design at the University of Bergen on Wednesday Jan 4th.

Students from the Grieg Academy performed fanfare by Harald Sæverud when the procession with the Queen was led into the main hall where the opening ceremony took place.
Photo Credits: Kongehuset.no

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The Noorwegian Royal Courts: Matrons of the Norwegian Telethon

Crown Princess Mette Marit

Queen Sonja of Norway and her daughter-in-law Crown Princess Mette-Marit are joining hands in patroning this year's Norwegian telethon concert to benefit the Red Cross.

The place was very appropriate for Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Mette-Marit were seen sitting this Monday, April 25th on the red bench that sits in the Royal Palace in Oslo park to meet the press, it is in no way a coincidence. This bench is one of those that the Red Cross has installed in 2015 in various public places in Norway, to break the loneliness encouraging people who sit there to discuss them. But just what is the Red Cross whose wife of King Harald V and that of Crown Prince Haakon came to talk.

Already together last week on April 19th to participate in a waste collection with volunteers in a city of northern seaside, Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Mette-Marit were again found side by side in front of the flashes of photographers or the microphones of journalists for a good cause. The two women, who chose to wear casual outfits for this appointment media, were there to announce that sponsoring concert the next edition of the Norwegian Telethon in October 2016. Which one will see its fundraising for the Red Cross Norwegian -Red. The money raised will go to help the people affected by the war in Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Myanmar, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as refugees received in Norway.

Launched in 1974, the Norwegian Telethon titled "TV-aksjonen" is dedicated each year to a different cause. Norwegians participate generously. For example, for each of the editions of 2013 and 2014, a sum equivalent to more than € 200 million had
Photo Credit: Paris Match/Kongehuset.no

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The Norwegian Royal Courts: Sprince Cleaning for Queen Sonja and Crown Princess Mette-Maritt

Crown Princess Mette Marit

Each with a white plastic garbage each clip its garbage. Queen Sonja of Norway and her daughter-in-law Crown Princess Mette-Marit had taken part in a very seriously the task on their April 19th. This was however far from their usual royal engagements. Thiey join forces with volunteers who clean the streets and beaches of Sandefjord, a town of the edges of the North Sea south of Oslo. Objective: To make the cleanest town in the whole kingdom of Norway.

The Royal House explains that, at a reception she gave last October with King Harald V of Norway for seniors engaged in volunteering, Queen Sonja had met one of the volunteers of this team. Very impressed with their results -more than 28 tons of garbage collected since 2014-, Sonja had promised to come and help. So she kept her word, resulting Mette-Marit in its wake, as well as the mayor of Sandefjord.

Once the collection performed, Sonja and Mette-Marit were rewarded for their efforts, like the other participants, with a hot drink and "kanelboller" (the cinnamon rolls). The Queen of Norway took advantage of the media coverage of her participation in the cleaning of this coastal town to remind Norwegians needed to change the bad habit of throwing garbage into the sea, especially the plastic bags.
Photo Credits: Paris Match

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The Norwegian Royal Courts: A stop in Milan

HM Queen Sonja

After the ceremonies and receptions, political meetings and cultural walk in the Forum of their first two days in Rome, King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway continued their official visit to Italy this April 8 with a commercial component. This has logically held in Milan, the economic and financial city. Seminars, meetings, business meals and visit exhibitions punctuated a day where there was talk about future energy and design.

Sonja appeared in the morning in a turquoise blue suit, a coordinated scarf tied around the neck. But the queen has not failed to change for lunch, opting for a two-tone dress. The Queen of Norway had associated a white dress with heels and a fuchsia bag, and threw over one shoulder a similarly colored stole.

During this meal, King Harald V said that trade relations between Norway and Italy dated for a while now. To support his point, he recounted that they had started in the fifteenth century with the browser and Venetian merchant Pietro Querini. During the winter of 1431-1432, a storm that derives three weeks his ship to the North, it was gathered, and a handful of crew members who survived on the island of Rost in Lofoten in northern Norway. He could not return home after three months with the fishermen of the island. And it is to him that we owe the import of Norwegian stockfish in Italy, became very popular in the peninsula under the name of "stockfish".
Photo Credit: Paris Match

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The Norwegian Royal Courts: Tourist on their first day in Italy

HM Queen Sonja

While they were on a state visit to Italy, Queen Sonja and King Harald V of Norway are offered a walk among the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum.

Her love for art is quite known to the world. It is therefore not surprising that Queen Sonja had managed to squeeze in a walk among the ruins of the Forum in the program of the state visit she performed alonngside her husband King Harald V in Rome these April 6th and 7th. This walk as much cultural tourism that has found a place in the schedule Thursday. Sonja was wearing the same outfit as the wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, which took place earlier. In this case a two-tone black and white set.

In the afternoon, the mother of two had changed, favoring a dress bedecked in shades of red, orange, fuchsia and black for receiving the royal couple hosted the President of the Republic Italy Sergio Mattarella at the Norwegian Embassy. This reception came after the State dinner hosted by Italian President at his Quirinale Palace the night before. For the occasion, the queen of Norway, who wore a purple evening dress bodice in lace and silver shoes, was adorned with a Queen Maud's Pearl and Diamond Tiara to match her pin. During the day on Wednesday, she had worn a suit in succession the same red as the small tambourine who wore then a perforated white jacket over a bright yellow dress. Outfits ideal for chaining official meetings: welcoming ceremony and meeting with President Mattarella, accompanied by his daughter Laura -who acts as the first lady of the country-; lunch with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi; talks with President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Deputies.
Arrived on Tuesday 5 April in Rome, King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway conduct a state visit of three days in Italy. After two days in Rome, the royal couple went to Milan on Friday April 8th.