The King Emeritus returns to Spain and takes refuge in his friend's house

When the King Emeritus's plane entered Spanish airspace yesterday, the pilot of the device put the sound coming from the control tower over the loudspeaker.

"Your Majesty, welcome to Spain," the air traffic controller proclaimed, to which

could not suppress tears, according to sources close to the monarch.

Shortly after, at 7:13 p.m. this Thursday, he landed at Vigo airport.

The father of the Transition, the savior of democracy after the 23-F coup, the Head of State for almost four decades, arrived in his country on a private flight, traveling the same path he did on August 3, 2020 , when he left Spain, also for Galician lands.

He then left under pressure from the Royal House.

After years of scandals, which began with the

and an untimely fall in Botswana, and ended with the publication of his link to the Lucum foundation.

Pointed out by his own son, who in a statement renounced any inheritance from his father, Don Juan Carlos had to quietly leave the country that he had helped build after the dictatorship.

He went to

in a retirement that he thought temporary, while the Prosecutor's Office investigated his movements and studied if he could be charged with any crime for the years that he had not been inviolable.

But when Dolores Delgado's team closed the cases that the King had pending, without any kind of conviction, far from being able to return to Spain, Don Juan Carlos sent a letter to his son in which he stated that his wish was to fix his residence in Abu Dhabi.

"It is my purpose to organize my personal life and my place of residence in areas of a private nature to continue enjoying the greatest possible privacy," he pleaded.

And this has been the return of the former head of state, like that of a retired man.

Two cars from the Civil Guard and the same from the National Police stood guard in front of the entrance of the Sanxenxo airport authorities.

Quite a few media outlets were waiting for the

with

registration and operated by the Angolan airline Bestfly, which was bringing the former King of Spain.

There was no longer an investigation by the Prosecutor's Office, nor a reason to hide.

Perhaps that is why the aircraft landed within camera shot of the assembled press.

Don Juan Carlos, of whom only three photographs had emerged over these almost two years, got off the plane alone, after two escorts.

At the foot of the stairs, the man accustomed to being received by a court, to red carpets and honors, was with the Infanta Elena, Pedro Campos and his wife,

, who, with intertwined hands, smiled at the embrace of the father and daughter.

That was all.

There was also a slight bow from Doña Elena at her first meeting in Spain with her father.

Withdrawal from public life

Don Juan Carlos, accustomed to official cars and large security devices, was treated this Thursday as the private person considered by the Royal House since he retired from public life.

That is why he got into the car of his friend Campos and, escorted by only two vehicles, they set out on the road to the house of the Galician shipowner.

The King sleeps in a room in a single-family house on his return to Spain.

He returns home, but not to his house.

And it seems to matter little what he is going to do these days of regatta at sea, where he finds freedom, as he confessed in 2012. At the close of this edition, a small security team from the Royal House had moved to

but they did not have orders to organize anything for this Friday, the day that Don Juan Carlos will be exposed to the press for the first time in years, in the regattas.

It will be the opportunity to see him on the move, to find out how he is, perhaps to answer the question of whether he has missed Spain, whether he wants to return to live here at some point.

Ode why she is going to Zarzuela as a guest this Monday, if it is true that they do not let her return to her Palace in another way.

Because the three days that Don Juan Carlos is going to spend in Sanxenxo are the preparation for the most uncomfortable moment for the former King: returning to Zarzuela.

On Monday he will meet in what was his house with Doña Sofía, Don Felipe and other members of the family.

It will be a meeting of no more than six hours, which will end with Don Juan Carlos on his way to the airport to catch another private flight to Abu Dhabi.

And perhaps then, after four days in Spain, in the eight hours back to Abu Dhabi, on a plane with his escorts, the King will remember that message to the nation after neutralizing 23-F or that «sorry, no it will happen again »after Botswana and 39 years on a throne that is now so far away.

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