As the day of his Golden Jubilee approaches, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia have made the last visit to a Swedish county for the occasion.
Their Majesties visited Värmland, a county in the centre-west of the nation, at the border with Norway. Incidentally, it is also the title assigned to Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland.
Upon their arrival, on 7 September, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia were welcomed by Governor Georg Andrén and his wife before stopping for a visit at Karlstad’s Central Hospital.
There, they received a briefing about expansion plans for the facility, which see construction begin in 2024, with sustainability being a primary goal in both the construction materials and the energy sources that will be used to run the hospital itself.
After watching a performance about the historical significance of Karlstad, the royal couple had lunch with the gubernatorial couple, during which the typical local dishes were served.
Afterwards, the King and Queen toured a photo exhibition about the King’s previous visits to Karlstad before taking a short walk towards Stora Torget.
During the walk, the couple stopped to look at the Peace Monument, created in the county in 1955 after the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian Union.
When they arrived at Stora Torget, Their Majesties were presented with a gift to commemorate the Golden Jubilee – a steel bench created by Norwegian furniture company Vestre.
The day’s final stop was the cathedral, where the royal couple attended a thanksgiving service to celebrate the imminent jubilee. It was an occasion for King Carl XVI Gustaf to offer a few words, during which he praised the county of Värmland for being the place of provenance for “much of what is associated with Sweden and the Swedish cultural heritage.”
This visit is the last one on the list of 21 counties that make up Sweden, all of which King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia have visited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the King’s accession to the throne.
