Queen Letizia of Spain will be setting the pace for Queen Camilla as she takes on an important role this week.
The Spanish queen is hosting the President of Germany on a State Visit from November 26, just days before Queen Camilla follows suit.
The German President, Franz-Walter Steinmeier, and his wife, Elke Budenbender, are making a three day visit to Spain where King Felipe and Queen Letizia will be their hosts.
(Casa de S.M. el Rey still/ fair use)
The couple will lead a ceremonial official welcome at the Royal Palace in Madrid as the visit gets under way and bring all the glitter to a spectacular State Dinner on the first evening of the trip.
President Steinmeier will spend the following days in meetings and on visits cementing the ties between Germany and Spain.
He will leave Madrid on November 28 and arrive in London on December 3 for his State Visit to the UK.
The President of Germany will be hosted at Windsor Castle during his time in the country with King Charles and Queen Camilla looking after them.
It’s thought the UK State Visit will follow the pattern of the two previous trips made by world leaders to Windsor this year. French President Emmanuel Macron and US President, Donald Trump, were both guests of The King and Queen at the castle earlier in 2025.
(Sgt Donald C Todd/ UK MOD © Crown copyright 2025)
On both those occasions, it was the Prince and Princess of Wales who began the official welcome, meeting the leaders to accompany them to the formal ceremony which starts a State Visit.
William and Kate also took part in the carriage processions that formed part of the official welcome.
Inside the Quadrangle at Windsor Castle, King Charles will accompany the German President and it’s expected the ceremony will include an inspection of a Guard of Honour before lunch inside Windsor Castle.
The State Banquet will also be held at the castle – it’s not known whether the giant Christmas tree which always takes pride of place in St. George’s Hall during the festive season will have been installed by the time guests sit down to dinner on December 3.
The State Visit to the UK will be he start of a busy festive season for the Royal Family and will end just 20 days before Christmas Day which King Charles is expected to spend at Sandringham, as is traditional.
(Stephen Lock/ i-Images)
There is already speculation over who will join The King and Queen in Norfolk for Christmas. The Prince and Princess of Wales and their three children are expected to be there as is Charles III’s sister, Princess Anne, and her children including Zara Tindall. However, it’s not known whether Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie will join the celebrations.
Their father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and their mother, Sarah Ferguson, are not invited and will be spending a final Christmas at Royal Lodge on the Windsor estate, the thirty room mansion they have shared since 2003. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has given up the leases on the property and will move to a private home on the Sandringham estate in early 2026. The news was announced at the same time as Buckingham Palace confirmed that The King’s brother was to lose his HRH and title of prince as well as the dukedom of York.
Queen Letizia, meanwhile, is facing her own controversies as her father-in-law, King Juan Carlos, has written a memoir which is published in Spain in early December.
