Bulgaria celebrates 'royal' wedding

The couple met three years ago in Madrid

By Nick Thorpe BBC south-east Europe correspondent

A wedding has taken place in Bulgaria between a Spanish explorer and Kalina, daughter of the country's prime minister and former king, Simeon of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

It was held in a palace recently restored to the family in Borowets, a mountain resort in south-west Bulgaria.

Some 200 guests from around the world, including Bulgaria's socialist President, Georgi Parvanov, and members of several European royal families were invited.

Simeon is related to British and Belgian royalty

Thirty-year-old Kalina is the youngest of Simeon II's five children, all of them born in exile in Spain.

Simeon is related to the Belgian and British royal families.

He came to the throne at the age of six, but was forced to leave Bulgaria by the Communist regime after World War II.

He returned in the 1990s and was elected prime minister last year, when a party named after him won parliamentary elections.

Bamboo raft

The groom is Kitin Munoz, a Spanish sailor and explorer.

An admirer of the Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, he has sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean on a bamboo raft.

He's an honorary consul of Morocco and has worked as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations' cultural organisation, Unesco.

The couple met three years ago in Madrid.

The Tsarska Bistritza Palace where the wedding was held was constructed by the bride's great-grandfather in 1914.