3.29.2010

Embarassing Admission: I Am Interested in Royalty from Afar

Letter home, July 2nd, 2008:

"On a barge tour of the harbor, by chance we saw the Queen of Denmark step from her Rolls, descend a wide stair and board her little barge ... "



"... with perfectly dressed sailors in white with navy blue poms and long ribbons trailing from their backs standing at either end of the little craft (almost like gondaliers) and up the wide steps leading to the harbour."



Queen Magrethe visible in the jaunty red hat:



"... Then they sailed out to the royal yacht, anchored in the middle of the harbor and covered with hundreds of little flags, very beautiful."



" ... I've since been told that when life in Copenhagen becomes too hectic for Queen Magrethe, she enjoys spending the afternoon on her yacht, and indeed that day it didn't sail anywhere and remained anchored in the harbor."



"I took many pictures of the whole thing, and felt a little silly at how excited it made me. And the water is so clean it looks black, and in many places you can see the bottom on the harbour and rivers when the sun is bright, but not glaring."

I think more than anything I was drawn to the pomp and circumstance, the performance almost like a ballet that follows her in life. However, I'm not entirely aloof: I have to admit a certain fascination with Queen Magrethe -- unlike many vaguely useless royals, she studied prehistoric excavation at Cambridge, and political science at Aarhus University, the Sorbonne & the London School of Economics. Her portrait in Aarhus Town Hall:



Presumably she is gesturing across the subtle lushness that is the Danish countryside. Everyone I was traveling with said she looked smug, but hey, wouldn't you be?

How lucky she is that no one cares about her little family outside of Denmark (except dorks like me, who run into her by chance), which I must admit strikes me as odd -- they have all the bells and whistles: impossible wealth, striking bone structure, etc. But perhaps they're too happy, and thus no good for news.

4 comments:

Andrew Liebchen said...

She does make the life of a royal look like such elegant fun.

Rambling Tart said...

Oh, I love this! :-) My Dad is from Denmark and I'm afraid I'm rather intrigued by her too. :-) When I visit my rellies in Denmark, I always page through their magazines featuring the Royals. Her father is the one who really delights me. His behavior during WW2 was stellar.

amanda said...

I was at the same time uninterested but also fascinated when I was in a class at RISD with Carl Phillip, the prince of Sweden. He used to show his pictures from some African Safari he went on for crit.

Nick Heywood said...

I have to admit (and this is awful) that I tried in vain to convince many of my prettiest friends to seduce him, become pregnant and bear his bastard. Wouldn't that be a baroque and kind of lovely life plan? Plus, he was really cute, and yes, fascinating in a certain way.

I'm absolutely terrible.

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