London’s Coronation Countdown: Travelers Arrive, Others Flee

For people making a longer journey to attend the coronation, the event is not only a celebration of Charles’s coronation, but a way of connecting to their heritage.

Paul Dabrowa, a biotech company founder who lives in Melbourne, Australia, said that being in London for the coronation is a way for him to honor his own family history. Mr. Dabrowa said his family members were displaced from Poland during World War II and resettled by British law in Australia after the war.

“I have a lot of respect for the monarchy,” he said, adding that he had also attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral last September. He has not yet made up his mind about her son, Charles, but will be watching the royal procession on May 6 in central London. “It’s worth giving him a chance and seeing what he’s going to do,” he said.

Pranay Manocha, a London-based software engineer, will not be with the crowds cheering.

Mr. Manocha, 43, said that the fanfare is poorly timed, considering the rising cost of living in Britain, which has left many people struggling to afford their grocery bills. Additionally, his grandparents were displaced by the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, a legacy of colonialism: Celebrating an institution that had left lasting pain did not seem right, he said.

“It’s going to be insufferable, almost, to see everybody celebrating the very thing that still hurts,” he said, adding that he would be going hiking in Cornwall on May 6 instead. “I hope that the weather will be nice.”

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