The Marivent Palace has been the summer paradise of the Spanish royal family for years. The Mallorcan refuge has gathered them together summer after summer, but has also been visited by members of other European royal houses.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the tragic death of Princess Diana. An accident that turned upside-down the life of the British royal family, cooled relationships and paralysed the country. The princess of Wales was very loved. A princess but also a person, her mind was set on humanitarian aid and she loved her young sons.
Diana also had a relationship with the Spanish royal family. As a matter of fact, Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia hosted Prince Charles and Diana with William and Henry at the Marivent. It was during the nineties, a period in which the press was talking about the extramarital affairs of both men.
In the face of this, many outlets have said that Sofia and Diana got on well from the start, although they didn't have much in common. The website Okdiario talked to journalist Jaime Peñafiel, who said: “They were two very different women without any mutual understanding. Sofia was a perfect host and made Diana and the children feel at home whilst Prince Charles had fun with the king, but that's it. Sofia was aware that her husband was a stereotype and that her guest was a young woman of spectacular beauty. Sofia knew it and it proved uncomfortable for her.”
Moreover, it should be remembered that in the memoir written by one of Diana's bodyguards, he claimed that she had confessed to him that the now retired Spanish king was “too tactile” a man: “Juan Carlos is frightfully charming but, you know . . . a little too attentive. I know it’s absurd, but I’m sure the King fancies me.”. Jaime Peñafiel remembers the princess having “a certain obsession that all the men who flirted with her wanted to take her to bed.”
But he's not the only person to have claimed this, according to the same site. A photographer who met them that summer stressed that the person Diana spoke most with was Juan Carlos, "Diana got on better with Juan Carlos I than with Sofía".
Whatever the case may be, during these holidays in Mallorca the English royals met a youngster, the then prince, now King Felipe VI, his sisters, infantas Elena and Cristina. They spent some days together on a yacht, enjoying the heat of the Mallorcan summer.
Was that summer as tense as they say it was?