Japanese emperor to reconnect with the River Thames in state visit meant to bolster ties with UK

LONDON (AP) — Before Emperor Naruhito of Japan attends a banquet hosted by King Charles III, lays a wreath at Westminster Abbey or tours one of Britain’s premier biomedical research institutes, he’ll kick off this week’s trip to the U.K. by visiting a site that has special meaning for him: The Thames Barrier.

While the retractable flood control gates on the River Thames don’t top most lists of must-see tourist sights, the itinerary underscores the emperor’s fascination with the waterway that is the throbbing heart of London.

That interest was born 40 years ago when Naruhito studied 18th-century commerce on the river as a graduate student at the University of Oxford. But those two years, chronicled in his memoir “The Thames and I,” also forged a special fondness for Britain and its people. The future emperor got a chance to live outside the palace walls, seeing the kindness of strangers who rushed to help when he dropped his purse, scattering coins across a shop floor, and experiencing traditions like the great British pub crawl.

“It would be impossible in Japan to go to a place where hardly anyone would know who I was,’’ Naruhito wrote. “It is really important and precious to have the opportunity to be able to go privately at one’s own pace where one wants.’’

Naruhito and the Empress Masako, who studied at Oxford a few years after her husband, returned to the U.K. on Saturday for a weeklong stay combining the glitter and ceremony of a state visit with four days of less formal events that will allow the royal couple to revisit their personal connections to Britain.

The visit comes at a time when the U.K. is seeking to bolster ties with Japan as it aims to be the most influential European nation in the Indo-Pacific region,