COPENHAGEN Some 30,000 Danes had filed past Queen Mother Ingrid's coffin over the past four days as it lay in state in Copenhagen's Christiansborg Palace chapel in preparation for Tuesday's funeral in Roskilde Cathedral.
The funeral ceremonies started with a brief memorial service in the Christiansborg chapel attended by Queen Ingrid's daughter, reigning Queen Margrethe II and the closest members of the royal family.
The popular Swedish-born Ingrid died, aged 90, last Tuesday at her residence at Fredensborg Palace north of Copenhagen following a sudden deterioration of her health.
Thousands of people gathered outside the chapel and lined the streets of Copenhagen to get a glimpse of Ingrid's funeral procession.
Following the memorial service, the flag-draped coffin was to be carried out of the chapel by 10 royal lifeguard and placed on a horse-drawn hearse.
The coffin, flanked by mounted hussar and followed by the royal family, was to go in procession from Christiansborg, seat of the Danish Parliament, to the central railway station.
From the station the coffin was to go on board a special train comprising veteran locomotives and first-class coaches for transportation to the city of Roskilde, 25 kilometers west of the capital.
The queen mother's funeral, attended by royalty from most of Europe and Nordic heads of state, takes place at Roskilde Cathedral, the traditional burial ground of Danish monarchs.
Ingrid was to be buried in a plot outside the church beside her husband, king Frederik IX, who died in 1972.
Ingrid, credited with helping to bolster Danish morale during the German occupation in the Second World War and for modernizing the Danish monarchy, married the then crown prince Frederik in 1935 and came to Denmark to be his queen.
(DPA)