Norway bids farewell to King Harald V on Wednesday, with monarchs, other members of European royal families and heads of state gathering in Oslo for his state funeral.<\/p>\n
Harald, who enjoyed widespread popularity among Norwegians during his 35-year reign, died in hospital at the age of 89 on August 28 after developing a serious blood infection.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of flowers have been laid outside the Royal Palace in Oslo in the days leading up to the funeral, while mourners have queued for hundreds of metres to pay their respects to the late monarch.<\/p>\n
For the past several days, Harald has lain in state in the Palace Chapel, where members of the public have been able to file past his coffin.<\/p>\n
At midday, the king’s coffin will be carried in a solemn procession from the Royal Palace to Oslo Cathedral, a little over a kilometre away. Tens of thousands of people are expected to line the route, with Norwegian flags flying at half-mast along the capital’s main Karl Johans gate.<\/p>\n
A memorial service is due to begin at the cathedral at 1 pm (1100 GMT), with a minute’s silence to be observed across Norway at the start of the service. Large screens have been set up at several locations in Oslo for the public to follow the proceedings.<\/p>\n
Among the foreign dignitaries expected to attend are German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while most European monarchies are due to be represented by their kings and queens. Prince William, the heir to the British throne, will represent his father, King Charles III.<\/p>\n
The funeral procession will then continue to the nearby Akershus Castle Church, where Harald will be laid to rest in the royal mausoleum.<\/p>\n
A private family ceremony at the church will conclude the funeral proceedings.<\/p>\n
Harald ascended to the Norwegian throne in 1991 following the death of his father, King Olav V.<\/p>\n
His son Haakon immediately succeeded him as Norway’s new king. Haakon, Queen Mette-Marit and their children, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, are expected to appear on the Royal Palace balcony at 4:45 pm.<\/p>\n
Harald’s funeral has drawn hundreds of journalists from around the world to the Norwegian capital, where strict security measures are in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway bids farewell to King Harald V on Wednesday, with monarchs, other members of European royal families and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[85],"tags":[76183,76116,27097,157,156,76117,36831],"class_list":["post-162798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oslo","tag-funeral-proceedings","tag-funeral-procession","tag-king-harald","tag-norway","tag-oslo","tag-oslo-cathedral","tag-royal-palace"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117240067818804741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162798","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=162798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}