Royal couple reveals romantic secrets

The only places Crown Prince Frederik felt he could be alone with his bride were Greenland, Antarktis, or Africa. He picked the warmest place, and the newlyweds spent their honeymoon just south of the equator.

The couple revealed for the first time some of the details of their courtship, marriage, and honeymoon in an interview with Australian talkshow host Andrew Denton on Monday, on national network ABC.

The Crown Prince, who famously had to blink away his tears when he saw his bride walk up the aisle during their wedding in May 2004, spoke openheartedly about his feelings during the ceremony.

"I could hear from the crowd outside that Mary had arrived," he said. "There were probably a lot of unreleased and repressed feelings that I had had to myself for years, and neither could nor wanted to keep for myself. I thought: 'To hell with keeping up the front. This is the big moment.'"

The Crown Prince planned the honeymoon as a surprise for his bride.

"It was important for me that we could be completely alone together," he said.

Only Africa, Antarktis, and Greenland lived up to his standards of isolation, and he picked the warmest one.

"It was fantastic to wake up the day after the wedding and find myself in Africa," Mary said.

The couple went on a series of different safaris both on horseback and on foot, and camped in the night. They did not reveal which country the travelled in.

Mary said they had previously managed to go on a vacation without being discovered by the press in the national park El Questro in Western Australia.

Frederik told the Australian host that he proposed to Mary in Rome during their vacation in the Italian capital in September 2003. Before they returned home, Mary's father gave his approval of the marriage and the court informed the public of the engagement.

Mary said the Danish language was still the biggest challenge in her new everyday as Crown Princess.

"It's a difficult language to learn and I still feel that I lag 20 percent behind in situations where everyone speaks Danish," she said. "Sometimes I find it difficult to say exactly what I mean or answer as fast as I would like."

Mary said she was working to improve her Danish and still took lessons.

On the other hand, she said she had learned to deal with the enormous media attention directed towards her.

"At first I found it harder to have people approaching me and invading my private space, but little by little I have learned that it's a part of the job. You have to work on keeping a respectful distance between yourself and the press."

She consoled herself with the fact that the media are fickle and tend to forget what was said the day before.

"I have seen pictures of myself from the beginning, where I look like a deer caught in the headlights," Mary said. "Now I often remind myself that the press should not affect how I spend my time with people and that the attention shouldn't change who I am."

Her 'favourite' was when a Danish weekly declared her pregnant, when she was really having her gallbladder removed.

"We laughed at it and said the headline should have read 'Mary gives birth to a gallstone.' One of the daily newspapers actually printed that headline," she said.

The Crown Prince finally gave the answer to the question how to wave in a royal manner.

"Just pretend you're screwing in a light bulb," Frederik said.

And that is all there is to it.