10 surprising facts about King Charles III

King Charles III (here with brother Edward) started learning different instruments as a child, including the piano and the trumpet. He sang in the school choir and played the cello in the university orchestra during his time at Cambridge. He loved playing there, even though he was "rather bad," he said in a BBC podcast in 2021. Charles still became the patron of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2000, Charles hired an official harpist to the Prince of Wales. But the new king is not only a music fan; he also loves visual arts. He himself paints watercolors, like this Swiss ski resort, created in 1993. The works have been exhibited at Windsor Castle and the Royal Academy, and are available for purchase. The sales proceeds go to charities.

Music: check! The arts: check! And King Charles has also demonstrated that he's a man of words too. As a young heir to the throne, he used to make up stories to tell to his younger brothers Edward and Andrew. This resulted in the children's book "The Old Man of Lochnagar," published in 1980, which is about a man who lives in a cave near the royal estate.

The new king is a car enthusiast. In order to keep that passion compatible with his climate protection work, he had his fleet of high-horsepower vehicles converted: His Aston Martin runs on ethanol derived from alcoholic gases emitted during the production of wine and cheese fermentation, while other cars use biodiesel made from old frying oil. He also has electric cars.

Despite calling for a sustainable future, the royal's carbon footprint remains hefty. Charles never travels on the same plane as his son William, to avoid losing two heirs to the throne at once should their plane crash. In 2013, the environmental prince faced criticism for having his own-brand bottled water shipped to the Middle East to fund his charities, where it was sold in luxury supermarkets.

In 1990, Charles founded the organic label Duchy Originals (now called Waitrose Duchy Organic), which, in addition to the royal mineral water, also offers herbal medicines, shortbread, as well as tea and porcelain. Charles is also involved in the whisky brand Barrogill — a robust blended malt, with a herbal and medium-sweet note. Part of the proceeds supports projects in Scotland.

It was often rumored that King Charles gets seven eggs boiled for him every day, from which he can then choose the one with the best egg yolk consistency — a story that has been denied several times by the royal house. Charles is rather seen as a recycler who hates it when groceries are thrown away.

It belongs to British culture just as much as the rain: Tea time is a fixed ritual in the new king's daily routine. According to various reports, at 4 p.m. sharp, Charles treats himself to a cup of tea, preferably Darjeeling with honey and milk, along with a snack, since he is said to skip lunch.

The German bloodline of the British nobility is well known, but a genealogical tree in The British Chronicles also connects the new British king to Vlad III, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula. The despot from the 15th century served as a model for Bram Stoker's vampire saga "Dracula." Incidentally, Charles was also offered the title "Prince of Transylvania" by Romania in 2017.

His list of his honorary titles is long. Charles was appointed chief in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, honorary chief "Red Crow" in Alberta, Canada, and "Helper of the Cows" by the Maasai tribe in Tanzania. Charles was particularly pleased when he was honored for his commitment to the rainforest in 2012 and a rare frog in Ecuador was named after him on this occasion: the Hyloscirtus princecharlesi.