Efe
The King and Queen have arrived this afternoon in Lanzarote for a two-day visit to the Canary Islands, during which they are also scheduled to travel to the islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
At 8:10 p.m. (Canarian time), with rain, the plane that brought Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía from Madrid landed at Lanzarote airport.
From the airport, the King and Queen will move to the Royal residence of "La Mareta", located on the seashore in the tourist enclave of Costa Teguise, in the northeast of Lanzarote.
There they will spend the night and tomorrow, Monday, in the morning, they will receive a visit from the President of the Canary Islands, Adán Martín, before holding an audience with the César Manrique Foundation, of which Doña Sofía is honorary president.
The deceased artist from Lanzarote, whose mark can be felt throughout the island, designed this typical construction in the late 70s for the then King Hussein of Jordan, who gave it to his friends, the King and Queen of Spain, a decade later. Since then, it has depended on National Heritage.
In "La Mareta", on January 2, 1999, Don Juan Carlos' mother, Doña María de las Mercedes, suddenly passed away during a few days of rest that brought the entire Royal Family together in Lanzarote for Christmas.
This Royal residence has hosted illustrious foreign guests of the King and Queen, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel, Helmut Kohl or Gerhard Schoreder, and the President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his family spent their last summer vacation there.
Before traveling to Gran Canaria, tomorrow, Monday, at noon, the King and Queen will have a meeting with institutional and cultural representatives of Lanzarote, in the Castle of San José, headquarters of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the island.
In the afternoon, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Don Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía will visit the cathedral and the Casa de Colón, monuments located in the historic center of the city, in the Vegueta neighborhood.
The first day of the King and Queen's stay in the Canary Islands will conclude at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in the capital of Gran Canaria, where they will preside over the award ceremony of the Gold Medals for Merit in Fine Arts, which the Ministry of Culture awards every year.
The actresses Victoria Abril and María Galiana, the actor José Luis Gómez, the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, the designers Carolina Herrera, Sara Navarro and Amaya Arzuaga, the writers José Luis Sampedro and Clara Janés, the visual artists Juan Genovés and Ginés Liébana, the bullfighter Paco Camino and the photographer Cristina García Rodero are some of the winners this year with that high distinction.
On Tuesday, the day on which the thirtieth anniversary of Don Juan Carlos' arrival on the Throne will be celebrated, the King and Queen will travel to Tenerife, in whose capital, Santa Cruz, they will attend a commemorative concert of said event at night.
Before, in the morning, they will inaugurate the "Magma, art and congresses" center in Costa Adeje, in the south of the island, and in the afternoon they will receive in audience, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a representation of the agricultural and fishing sectors of the archipelago.
At the concert at night, organized by the Government of the Canary Islands in the new Auditorium of Tenerife, designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava, the island's Symphony Orchestra, directed by its principal conductor, Víctor Pablo Pérez, will perform works by Mozart and Brahms.
