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Countries, Deals, Europe

Bon Anniversaire Diana á 60

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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.

America, Countries, Europe, UK

School’s back for ever

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I’m reminded in this month when classes return in the UK that my last school day was in New York

I had left school in Scotland three months previously and my parents had rewarded me for my efforts with a trip out to see my cousins in America.

Eddie was (and still is) my wee cousin, my junior by a year, and so was still at school.

And so for me to hang out with him I’d have to join him in class.

Yes Sir

Lady Liberty hasn’t chamged

I still recall his headmaster sitting us down and telling me I’d have to behave (my reputation had clearly preceded me).

And that I nodded obediently despite the principal in truth holding no authority over me.

The experience was fairly unique as holiday expeditions go.

And I might as well have been from Mars as far as Eddie’s schoolmates were concerned.

So when I stuck my hand up and answered the teacher’s question their jaws fell as they’d never heard such a sound as came out of my mouth.

Teacher’s pet

The story ought to end there with me being a minor celebrity for the day… only for Eddie to reveal more years later.

On my extended trio down Memory Lane three years ago with detours through Washington DC and Philadelphia which ended of course in New York.

I of course revisited the family bar, the iconic Irish Cottage in Queen’s.

And I discovered that at least one girl that day back in Eddie’s school had wanted to meet me later to get to know me.

All of which ramblings are a celebration of the last summer after school.

Everywhere from the UK through Ireland and over to America, the three countries I know best it is a rite of passage.

And I dare say in other countries too.

French lessons

The previous year to America I had hoped was going to be my last in school only for me to miss out on university and have to repeat.

And I spent Summer ’82 it in the French Riviera… it was St Raphael then and Cannes years later in the Noughties.

There were no girls then either but not for the want of trying… but then that’s a different story.

Now for all those who are licking their wounds after not getting the grades you deserve because of COVID I feel your pain.

And that you haven’t got the holiday you earned either.

But rest assured all good things will come to he who waits.

As the guy waiting outside one camper’s tent in St Raphael told me when I was 16 as he awaited his turn.

Caribbean, Countries, Europe, Sport

My Sporting Weekend – Hamilton, Monaco and Barbados

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You know when you think you’ve seen someone famous, like Lewis Hamilton or me. you convince yourself it’s just someone who looks like them.

And so I had a job in persuading my fellow revellers at Grand Kadooment, the closing parade of the Barbados Carnival, that it was actually Lewis on the float.

Lewis should be there right now… he is, every year in the land of his forefathers. As should I as was before Let’s rumba in Barbados My kiss with Rihanna

But www.visitbarbados.com instead he is in Austria whizzing around the track in that country’s Grand Prix.

Alas without the cheering petrolheads who go from circuit to circuit following their favourite boy racers.

One solution would be to have a series of purely road races so we could all see.

And nobody does that quite like the most famous race of them all… Monaco.

Me? I can’t even get out of the pit lane in my Fiat 500.

Don’t worry, Lewis, I’m no threat. And besides I’d rather be driven around the Cote D.Azur in a speed boat anyway… The Boat D’Azur and https://www.google.ie/amp/s/about-france.com/mobi/index-amp.htm.

Everyone should visit Lewis’s home, Monaco (it’s one of four globally actually) if they’re in the French Riviera on holiday.

It’s only one of those great French train journeys around stunning cliffs and we took it from our camp base in St Raphael.

Full reveal here… we pulled down the shutter when the ticket conductor came around.

Not the first, or last, time we tested the officials, or gendarmes’ patience on that post-school holiday.

Visit https://www.francethisway.com/places/saint-raphael.php and https://www.visitmonaco.com/en.

And back to Lewis’s beloved Barbados. We chased him down the street… he’s used to everybody being in his slipstream.

His float though was going a little slower but as you can see from the picture he ended up giving us the bum’s rush.

So until the next time it’s back to playing with my toy racing cars.

I only wish I had a track like this one in Istanbul Airport’s Turkish Airways www.turkishairlines.com and Wham bam, thank you Hamam.