Prince William and his wife Kate met German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday on a tour that media saw as an effort to shore up relations with EU countries before Britain leaves the bloc.
With the British government struggling to show unity as negotiations on leaving the European Union began in earnest this week, the royal couple were in Berlin on what Deutschlandfunk radio called a "charm offensive in times of Brexit".
William, second in line to the British throne, and Kate walked through Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and shook hands with locals who cheered, took photographs and waved the British flag. They lunched with Merkel at her offices.
While the couple and their children - Prince George, who turns four this month, and two-year-old Princess Charlotte - have delighted the crowds in Germany and Poland where they began the two-country tour, one newspaper said they could do little to ease the pain of the divorce with the EU.
"William and Kate supposed to smile Brexit away in Germany," ran the headline in regional newspaper Rheinische Post.
As well as meeting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the couple visited a charity in eastern Berlin that works with disadvantaged children. They also met survivors of the Holocaust and toured Berlin's Holocaust Memorial.