Family vacation memories are some of the most treasured as you get older. Everything seems easier when you're away from home and responsibilities for a few days. Certainly, the royals agree. Prince William and Kate Middleton treated their three kids to a trip to the Isles of Scilly.
The trip was extra-sentimental for William. He visited the Isles of Scilly on a vacation around his seventh birthday with Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and Prince Harry in 1989. Photos of the family from that trip show the royals having a blast. The family rode bicycles together and simply beamed. William and Kate were spotted doing just that during one of the days of their trip, a source told the Mirror.
The choice to not leave the country was also allegedly a practical one. The royals wanted to avoid any further quarantining, which may have been necessary for international travel. As restrictions begin to lessen in the UK, William and Kate are hoping to be back at it for the causes they care about as soon as they can be.
Prince William is revisiting some of the best days of his childhood while making memories with his own children. William and Kate took George, Charlotte, and Louis to the Isles of Scilly for a nice midsummer vacation as back-to-school season draws near. The island off the coast of Cornwall is truly breathtaking.
William visited the Isles of Scilly as a boy. Around the time of his seventh birthday in 1989, William and brother Harry were brought to the islands on vacation by their parents, Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The young boys looked like they had an amazing time on the trip.
William returned to the isles for the first time in adulthood with Kate in 2016. A retired woman who saw William there during his childhood trip chatted with him when he returned.
"I said to William, 'you haven't been here for a good while' and he said 'no'. I said the 'last time you were here with your brother you were only so high'," she told the Mirror.
The woman recalled seeing William and Harry in Tresco, where their parents enjoyed visiting. The island's residents were only too happy to allow the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children their privacy as they bonded as a family.
"They visited as a family, William and Harry were quite small, but they were left alone [and] no one disturbed them."
On Thursday, William and Kate were spotted riding bikes, just as he did as a child.
"William and Kate were riding their bicycles, having a laugh," an onlooker told the Daily Mail. "They looked so happy enjoying the weather."
Bike riding seems to be a favorite hobby of the Cambridges. Last fall, George and Charlotte were spotted biking around the grounds of Kensington Palace. The prince and princess looked quite skilled for their ages, and they were clearly having so much fun.
The young royals will be back in school before you know it. Both children attend Thomas's Battersea, though it's unclear whether they will be going back in person. The subject of school is even more interesting this year where Prince George is concerned.
The young future king recently turned 7 years old. In the royal family, children typically head off to boarding school at the age of 8. Both William and Harry attended the Ludgrove School in Berkshire at that age.
Will they choose to break with tradition with George? Sources close to the Cambridges believe that they won't be sending the little one off to boarding school anytime soon.
"The vogue now is massively against young children boarding. Sending them away from the familial bubble, whatever the resources and culture of the school, the emotional structure that a family provides is more important at that age — it's such a tender age," an educational source told Insider.
The path ahead for William and Kate is different from what it's been for any other royal couple. It only makes sense that things will look different for their children as well. Whatever decisions they make about the children's schools, what's important is that they're taking time now to make memories with them. Hopefully they'll cherish the memories of this summer's vacation as much as William treasures his memories of a family vacation over 30 years ago.
