Queen Letizia Returns to Her Childhood School to Open the Year
Queen Letizia of Spain opened the 2026/2027 school year in the classrooms where she once learned to read and write.
She returned to La Gesta, the state-run nursery and primary school in Oviedo, to preside over the official opening ceremony, as reported by Town & Country. The visit marked the formal start of the school year. She dropped in on several classes and spent time with students.
She knew the hallways. La Gesta is Queen Letizia's own childhood school. Oviedo is the city in Asturias, the northern coastal region of Spain, where she grew up before her career as a journalist and her marriage into the Spanish royal family.
She did not go there alone as a child. Queen Letizia attended La Gesta with her two younger sisters. All three sisters passed through the same public school in their hometown.
It was not her first trip back. Queen Letizia and King Felipe visited La Gesta together in 2008 for the school's 50th anniversary. Former teachers remembered the future queen as a “bright and respectful student, though not a bookworm.”
Spain's royal household, Casa Real, listed the engagement as the “Apertura del Curso Escolar 2026/2027,” or opening of the school year, at C.P. Gesta in a forecast agenda dated Sept. 16 in Madrid, according to Casa Real. Spanish public broadcaster RTVE noted that the queen presided over the official ceremony in Oviedo. Ahead of the visit, Hola reported the ceremony was scheduled to start at noon.
What makes this stand out is the familiarity. Most official visits take royals somewhere new. This one put Letizia in rooms she already knew, meeting children sitting where she once sat.
