By Nerijus Adomaitis and Janis Laizans<\/p>\n
OSLO, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Thousands of Norwegians gathered on Saturday to say goodbye to King Harald in front of the royal palace, where he \u200clies in state, with many well-wishers remembering his sense of inclusiveness and tolerance.<\/p>\n
Europe’s oldest monarch, \u200cwho emerged from the shadow of his well-loved, extrovert father to become a reformer during more than three decades on the throne, \u200bdied on Friday at the age of 89.<\/p>\n
Late on Friday, throngs lined the streets of Oslo in pouring rain to watch the funeral cortege travel from Oslo University Hospital, where Harald died, to the royal palace.<\/p>\n
Flags were flying at half-mast throughout the country and portraits of the late king in gala uniform were everywhere, \u200cfrom bus stops, trams and metro \u2060stations to shops, offices and public buildings.<\/p>\n
As the nation mourned Harald, attention also turned to the succession. Crown Prince Haakon, the late king’s only son, automatically became \u2060king upon his father’s death under Norway’s constitutional monarchy.<\/p>\n
King Haakon VIII will speak to the nation in a televised address at 1900 local time (1700 GMT) on Saturday. On Tuesday, he will take the oath in front of parliament, \u200bwhen \u200bhe will swear to defend Norway’s constitution and laws.<\/p>\n
He \u200bbecame king the moment his father passed away. There \u200cwill be no coronation as they were abolished by parliament in 1908.<\/p>\n
TOLERANCE AND INCLUSIVENESS<\/p>\n
The main avenue in central Oslo, Karl Johan, was tightly packed with Norwegians of all walks of life heading towards the palace, clutching flowers, handwritten cards, drawings and small national flags.<\/p>\n
On what should have been the 58th wedding anniversary of Harald and Queen Sonja, who survives him, they praised the late king’s spirit of inclusiveness.<\/p>\n
“He meant a \u200clot to us immigrants … We felt really very included. So, \u200bthanks to him, I feel so Norwegian,” Veselina Vitanova, a 43-year-old \u200bteacher originally from Bulgaria, told Reuters outside the \u200bpalace.<\/p>\n
Another referred to a speech Harald delivered in 2016 that went viral worldwide, \u200cin which he said: “Norwegians are girls who love \u200bgirls, boys who love \u200bboys and girls and boys who love each other”.<\/p>\n
“It embodies the way he felt about people and the way he wanted us Norwegians to feel about each other,” said Mari Eidsvaag, 32, \u200bwho wore a T-shirt emblazoned with \u200cthat sentence, a rainbow and a drawing of King Harald.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s a very important \u200bstatement, especially these days,” she told Reuters.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, Janis Laizans and Dylan \u200bMartinez, writing by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Ros Russell)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nerijus Adomaitis and Janis Laizans OSLO, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Thousands of Norwegians gathered on Saturday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[85],"tags":[72765,71550,73015,73016,157,59544,156,13155,4344],"class_list":["post-155289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oslo","tag-haakon-viii","tag-harald","tag-janis-laizans","tag-nerijus-adomaitis","tag-norway","tag-norwegians","tag-oslo","tag-oslo-university-hospital","tag-reuters"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117179595205513835","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}