Eye Opener
FamilyFortuna
For nearly everyone yachting is an escape, but for royals,
especially when the Princess of Wales and her family were
involved, it was usually an inefective one. In August 1990
even a holiday in Spain was considered public business, and
the press corps was well aware of a particular cruise on board
the Spanish royal family’s yacht, one of many namedFortuna.
All lenses were focused on the boatload of royals, which
included the radiant Princess of Wales and her two boys. The
princes were only eight and just shy of six years of age on the
occasion of this day trip around the island of Mallorca with
their parents, the Spanish royal family and the former king
of Greece, Constantine II, and his family.
Whereas the Princess of Wales loved the sun, the sea
and the warmth of the Mediterranean, the Prince of Wales
reportedly was much less of a fan, and he was recovering
from a broken arm after a fall in polo that had warranted
a trip to hospital. There were already rumours of additional
(and harder to mend) cracks between the prince and princess.
And that’s not the only drama in play here. Complex
diplomatic work had led to this family vacation. At the time
of Charles’ and Diana’s wedding less than a decade earlier,
there had been tensions between England and Spain. King
Juan Carlos I and Queen Sophia had refused to attend the
wedding over the honeymoon plans, which started in
Gibraltar – a sore point between the two countries. Queen
Elizabeth had repaired the relationship by inviting King Juan
Carlos for an oicial visit to England and he reciprocated
with an invitation for the young couple to visit the Spanish
royal family’s summer retreat, Marivent Palace, in 1986, the
first of several visits to the island of Mallorca. And while it
doesn’t look like it in this family photo taken four years later,
apparently everyone was talking again.
Words – Cécile Gauert