James Middleton, the younger brother of Princess Kate, has shared details of their past holidays together – and they were decidedly unglamorous.
The 37-year-old lifted the lid on the Middleton family’s very down-to-earth getaways in an interview with The Sunday Times , revealing how parents Carole and Michael would whisk their three children away to no-frills destinations.
“Holidays tended to be packing up the car and driving somewhere,” James told the outlet. “My parents, sisters and I would visit different places in the Swiss Alps each summer, such as Les Masses, or we’d go to Avoriaz in France.”
He continued: “Dad would find a mountain refuge where we’d have a rather sloppy soup-like meal for tea, but we were so hungry from a day of hiking that it tasted amazing. Then we would fall fast asleep in our bunk — we’d sleep on one long bunk, all five of us — surrounded by other walkers. The next day we’d wake up early, put our walking boots back on and continue our trek, ending up in another village.”
James and his big sister Kate pictured as children ( Image:
Instagram/ @jmidy)
James went on to describe “distinct memories of the beautiful butterflies, wildflower meadows and the sounds of cowbells — and those memories came back to life this summer when we took Inigo to Valmoral in the French Alps to visit Alizée’s family,” referring to his wife, Alizée Thevenet, and their one-year-old son, Inigo.
“There were the same smells, the same marmot calls; it was a pinch-me moment that brought me back to childhood summers when I’d hike up mountains with a rucksack that was bigger than me,” James added. “I can’t wait for Inigo to form those sorts of memories.”
The Middleton family remain incredibly close – as was made clear in James’s 2024 memoir when he revealed the very casual way Alizée first met Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
He said that just a few months into his fledgling relationship, he and Alizee attended a wedding near the Middletons’ home in Bucklebury, in 2018. “We decide, on impulse, to stay at Mum and Dad’s,” he worte in Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life.
“I’m woken at 7.30am by giggling at the bedroom door. It’s George and Charlotte, my nephew and niece. I hadn’t realised all three children are staying for the weekend with my sister and William. Alizee is still sound asleep, so I gently shush the children and we go downstairs where Catherine and William are drinking their early morning tea in the kitchen.”
Suddenly, Alizee appears, “her hair still tousled, and she is wearing one of my shirts,” wrote James. “In situations like this, Alizee is wonderfully French. She does not panic or rush upstairs to get dressed. Instead, she just greets everyone warmly as if it’s not remotely unusual to be meeting her boyfriend’s sister and brother-in-law for the first time wearing only an oversized man’s shirt.”
Prince George and Prince Charlotte, meanwhile, are “asking all kinds of cheeky questions at 100 miles per hour,” James revealed. “‘How come we weren’t there when they went to bed? And who is this lady? Is she your girlfriend?’ (Cue giggles from both of them.) So I tell Charlotte and George, yes, she is my girlfriend and introduce her to them, then we are all talking and laughing as if she has been part of the family for years.”
