Bon Anniversaire Diana á 60 and here is her love letter to France.
Aujourd-hui est son anniversaire and our final images of Princess Diana are of her holidaying in France.
Hers is a well-trodden path although none of us can afford a superyacht in the Med or the Hotel Ritz in Paris.
But there is a magnifique vacation (and that’s mon Francais exhausted) to be had in Paris/Cote d’Azur.
Diana’s City of Love
The French capital is, of course, heralded as the City of Love although for four spotty teenage lads there was nothing debonair about our overnighter.
Or Ritzy room. Instead we reposed on the floor of the Paris Saint-Lazare train station.
And were awoken not with a copy of Le Monde and a Mimosa but a kick to the ribs by gunned-up gendarmes.
But just to daydream a little, here’s what a fancy 218sqm Suite Impériale with a view of the Place Vendôme in the Ritz looks like.
Crowning glory
I don’t know how prescient it is to stay in the Marie-Antoinette Bedroom but here goes.
The Ritz flag it up as a replica of the Queen’s bedroom at the Chateau de Versaille with a canopy bed, draped in silk.
You can look up in the Marie/Antoinette at 6m high ceilings
And around at features including massive chandeliers, screens, an embellished chaise longue, pedestal tables and antique clocks.
A wash isn’t a swish of water from the sink at the station but a large bathtub in a room done entirely in carved wood features.
Je suis un parade
You’ll be treated like a king, just like Louis XV as an 11-year-old in 1721, as a guest of the Duchesse de Gramomt, then the lady of la maison.
Now they can’t promise a parade as the Turkish ambassador brought down below then with his procession and camels.
But you will see Paris life in all its élan.
Suites are from €2500 a night and rooms from €1300, although we assume the Marie Antoinette is at the top end.
Princess Diana’s last Summer of Love began on that yacht off Sardinia before taking a private jet to Paris.
For us as 16-year-olds it never got past school French on the dance floor… Comment allez-vous?
Riviera of dreams
And un petit tent in Saint-Raphael.
I’ve upgraded on my travels to the Riviera since and sped on a boat around the coast of Cannes.
And you don’t have to be a princess or a Dodi either to enjoy Cannes with the family-friendly Mimozas, Mandelieu-la-Napoule,
Bon Anniversaire Diana á 60.
