Showing posts with label Juan Carlos I Borbón. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juan Carlos I Borbón. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

H.M. The King of Spain and H.M. The Queen of Spain to visit Australia

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25646955-26040,00.html

The Australian reports that

SPANISH King Juan Carlos arrives in Australia next week for his first official visit in 21 years as Spain rediscovers the Asia-Pacific.

In Sydney, Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia will open Australia's first Cervantes Institute, a Spanish culture and language agency that has made Asian expansion a priority with new centres in Beijing and Tokyo.

The June 24-26 royal tour will be their first state visit since 1988, when they attended the Brisbane Expo. (Their visit to the 2000 Olympic Games was a "private" one.)
[bold type in the original]
The article contained the following interesting trivia:

In 1606, [Pedro Fernandez de Quiros] mistook present-day Vanuatu for the great south land, or Terra Australis, and christened it "Austrialia," a reference to the Austrian Habsburg ancestry of the Spanish king. Tweaked by Matthew Flinders, the name stuck.
Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Gregory Barbarigo, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2009