All About Royal Families

July 24th. 1561 marks the birth of Maria of the Palatinate. This event took place in Heidelberg (Germany). Her parents had been Louis VI, Elector Palatine and Elisabeth of Hesse. Mary of the palatinate - Source picture: wikipedia In April 1578 Prince Charles of Sweden, who was Duke of Södermanland too,  visited her home and proposed Maria. In this marriage proposal, religion played a huge role. Maria was Lutheran and Charles was sternly Protestant. On May 11th. 1579 the wedding took place and Maria followed Charles to Sweden. There they lived in his Duchy. Although there were no portraits of Mary, she was described as beautiful, gentle and diplomatic and her marriage to Charles IX of Sweden was happy.  She accompanied him around the Duchy as long as her pregnancies made it possible. The Royal Couple would have 6 children. Mary died on July 29 -th. 1589 in Eskilstuna. She was buried in the Strängnäs Cathedral. It was said that then Duke Charles mourn

On July 21st. 1843, the Antwerp Zoo was established, which makes it one of the oldest animal parks of the world. engraving of the Antwerp Zoo -Source picture: Wikipedia In 1844 King Leopold I of Belgium inaugurated the building and the predicate 'Royal' was added to its name for this occasion. During the Olympic Games of 1920 the Antwerp Zoo was the host for boxing and wrestling games. In 1969 the Antwerp Zoo emphasized his role in education with the Zoo Classes. Several decades later even my husband and I went on a schooltrip to the Antwerp Zoo.  On January 1st. 1983, the animal park was classified as monument. In fact there are besides the animals a lot of beautiful buildings like: - the entrance; - Egyptian temple; - Moor temple; - Aquarium (made in 1910 and designed by Emile Thielens); - Winter garden.

No, this blogpost isn't written too early. Indeed July 21st. marks the National Day of Belgium, but today there also are a lot of festivities.  Belgian monument in Spa Already this evening, a concert will take place at the BOZAR palace  in Brussels.The concert will be attended by King Philippe of the Belgians  and his wife, Queen Mathilde and other members of the Royal Family. Each year the King of the Belgians gives a speech on the occasion of the National Day. In his speech King Philippe warned about the superficial relations on the Internet. Meanwhile since now the Belgian Monarchy has an official page on Facebook.  Will there be one on Google+ too? :-)  On July 21st. there will be several Te Deums, inter alia in Brussels, Antwerp and Mons. Te Deum is a remembrance of the enthronement of King Leopold I of Belgium.   On the Twitter section of my blog, you can  see some lovely pictures of   King Philippe and his family. In the afternoon

A pink façade and some history... That's the least that I can tell about the Neo-Baroque Posthof in Trier. It was used as Post office and it showed the representation of the Post as an Imperial Institution in a very impressive way. Posthof Trier - own picture With this post, I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Weekend. Thank you for reading my blog, the likes and the reshares on Google+ and on  Twitter as well!