Waving to crowds from the palace alongside his glamorous former newsreader wife, Spain's new king Felipe VI will take the crown Thursday hoping to help heal a crisis-stricken nation.
The blue-eyed 46-year-old, a former Olympic yachtsman just under two metres (six foot, six inches) tall, will stand in military uniform to swear an oath in parliament.
Pic: AFP
Felipe and his wife Letizia, 41 - dubbed Spain's first "middle class" queen - will then wave from the balcony of Madrid's Royal Palace and entertain 2,000 guests at a reception.
Pic: AFP
Overall, it will be a relatively sober ceremony in keeping with Spain's crisis spending cuts, with no foreign dignitaries invited.
Then Felipe must turn his mind to the job: modernising the monarchy as the head of a state wearied by recession, corruption and separatist tensions.
Pic: AFP
Felipe VI has been groomed for this moment since he was a boy. It is Spain's first royal succession since the monarchy was re-established in 1975.
Pic: Getty Images
He ascends the throne with rising popularity despite scandals that have blackened the reputation of his abdicating father Juan Carlos and elder sister Cristina.
"Felipe seems very well-prepared to govern," said passer-by Enrique Martin, 71, strolling in the sunshine near the Royal Palace.
Pic: AFP
"He is a young lad, with young ideas. He has an enormous responsibility but I think he will do as his father did: try to be the king of all the Spanish. I am sure he will manage it."
Pic: AFP