This coming Sunday, Norway will celebrate their national day. The day is usually centered around the royal family with the main celebrations taking place in the areas surrounding the royal palace in Oslo. More than 100,000 children usually march past the royal palace to greet their King on national day. Not only are the childrens’ parade cancelled this year because of the virus, yesterday came the news that the whole castle area will be closed to the public to prevent large crowds gathering.
The police in Oslo say that they will guard the entrances to the Palace Park to prevent people from gathering. Several statues in the park will be open in the early morning on Sunday for small ceremonies to lay down wreaths. People who usually attend the wreath-ceremonies are encouraged to stay home and follow the TV broadcast.
Norway’s national TV station NRK has been granted access to the palace square to create a live TV show that will be broadcast to the people, so that Norwegians can still celebrate their national day. It has been stated the royal family will show themselves at Sunday, however there have been no details released as of yet.
For most Norwegians, the celebration of May 17 is synonymous with seeing the royal family standing on the castle balcony in front of a sea of people. This will not be the case this year, and this will be the first national day celebration where this has not happened since the Second World War. The Royal Court does not want to announce the royal family’s plans for the National Day. This is done to avoid large gatherings of people.
In a press release on Wednesday, the Royal Court announced that His Majesty the King’s Guards music corps and various choirs will perform the national anthem in a national celebration on 17 May. It will all take place at the closed down Castle square at 1pm.
The ongoing public health emergency has started to become stable in Norway for a few weeks. Restaurants and schools are now open. It is also permitted for crowds of up to 50 people to gather in theatres and concerts. If you arrange a private national day party on Sunday in Norway, you are allowed to have as many as 20 guests. In Norway as of May 13, a total of 8,135 have been diagnosed with the virus, with 228 dying.
