The Royal Family of Norway has not starred in positive news for months. To the family controversies-with the shaman, the arrest and subsequent placing, firstborn of Mette-Marit, and the constants-are added the health problems that some of its members are going through and that harm the day to day of their official agenda. It was in April 2024 when the monarch announced that it was going to reduce its official commitments “permanently” so as not to harm the visibility of the monarchy. Despite that decision, he refuses to abdicate in favor of his son, who in the end is the one who is acting as a king without being. The king has barely appointments on his official agenda, but enjoying a vacation is still its highest priority.
The communication team informs of their absences, but not the place to which it travels. In February 2024, an infection was known. And this Monday, June 2, it has been known that last March the marriage enjoyed a vacation in Spain. Specifically, in Tenerife. Harald and Sonia de Norway traveled to the Canary Island in a private visit in which they wanted to honor the Norwegian explorer and scientist.
On March 23, Jacqueline Heyerdahl, widow of the explorer, and Alicia Barroso, director of the park, received the kings in this ethnographic park and botanical garden, located 26 kilometers from Santa Cruz de Tenerife and who visit 80,000 people every year. Until now this visit had remained a secret for security reasons, but now details and images have been made public. “For the Norwegians, Heyerdahl is the number one ambassador throughout the world. He died in 2002 and the last 10 years of his life lived here in Tenerife and had a rather close relationship with the kings of Norway,” Barroso explains in telephone conversation with the country.
This outdoor museum was created in the early 1990s to protect structures in the form of staggered pyramid that were discovered in Güímar. The first scientist who gave some importance to this finding was Heyerdahl, who had investigated other pyramids throughout the world and who considered that it was structures of ancient civilizations that, in addition, were temples of sun adoration. Although this theory is not yet confirmed, they are open to continue collecting funds to be able to date exactly when they were built. Hence, the explorer’s legacy is still alive on the island.
This was the first time that the Norwegian kings visited Tenerife, where they were several weeks, according to Barroso. “At the time they were on vacation, some media published that they were in southern Spain, but it was not known exactly where,” says the director of the Park. Here they met again with Thor’s widow, Jacqueline: “I hadn’t seen themselves for a long time. It was a very beautiful moment.”
The guided tour, made personally by Barroso in English, lasted more than two hours. Time in which, he says, they showed a great curiosity for the work that the marriage made in Tenerife. Together they went to an area of the park dedicated to the explorer, where there is a bust of him and where the queen and her widow placed a crown of flowers. “It’s very normal people, speaking with all the naturalness and very close. I saw them perfectly,” he recalls in the call. And he adds: “He has mobility problems and walks with two crutches. They asked us to take chairs. During the guided tour, when I stopped, we put a chair to sit down.” Barroso also highlights the vitality of Sonia de Norway: “I was from here to there, taking the photos with her own mobile. Very active, remembering trips they had made together. She is a very curious person.” A month later ,.
Four days before their visit they warned to the park and went with a security team assigned by the Spanish Royal House. A secret that remained for the rest of the museum workers until the same day. Even so, they gave them time to prepare a surprise for the Norwegian kings: “We gave them a typical Canarian ceramics, of some spoons used by the Guanches. And also a bouquet of flowers with the colors of the Flag of Norway.” Subsequently, the Kings sent a letter to thank and thank for the visit and for “keeping heyerdahl’s legacy alive.”
Those days stayed in the south of the island and before the visit they enjoyed a lunch in Güímar. And at the end of tour By the park, they asked for advice to see in Tenerife. Queen Sonia also sent a letter to the widow about what Tenerife was: “He highlighted the colors, the contrast landscapes he had seen and that they had impacted him so much. He said that Tenerife had much to offer and that they were going to recommend it,” Barroso is proud.
