Kate Middleton’s ‘significant’ moment during ‘deeply moving’ Italy trip

This momentous visit was her first overseas working trip since her cancer diagnosis two years ago and Kate was said to be “enthused and energised” during a two-day visit to northern Italy. It was a trip where she spoke more personally and emotionally than ever before. A Kensington Palace spokesman told HELLO! she found the trip “deeply moving on both a professional and personal level.”

I joined the Princess as she received a superstar’s welcome in the medieval town of Reggio Emilia, as some 3,000 people, including nuns and pre-schoolers had gathered, shouting her name and screaming in delight as she stopped to chat and pose for selfies.

There were echoes of her late mother-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales, as Kate-mania gripped the town, where she was greeted by cheering crowds calling her name and shouting “Bellissima!” – meaning very beautiful.

Echoes of Princess Diana 

Looking chic in an azure trouser suit by Canadian British designer Edeline Lee, the Princess revealed an impressive command of Italian as she chatted to locals and stopped to play with a baby.

“I think Italian people see Kate as following on from Diana,” Paolo Rosato, a senior journalist at Il Resto Del Carlino newspaper, tells HELLO! “For my generation, Diana was so important. I’m 44 but my daughter is nine, and she knows Kate and likes her very much. I think Kate and Diana’s stories are close. She has replaced Diana in people’s affections, so the announcement of her trip here was a moment of joy and great happiness.”

The Princess had not travelled for work since 2022, when she joined her husband the Prince at the Earthshot Prize Ceremony in Boston. This time she was in Italy solo to promote her own passion project – her Royal Foundation’s Centre for Early Childhood – and wanted to find out more about Reggio Emilia’s world-leading philosophy for raising children, which focuses on the importance of attentive carers, the environment that surrounds a child and nature as “the third” teacher.

At the end of the visit, she said: “Over the past two days in Reggio Emilia, I have seen first-hand the power of nature and creativity that put human connection at the centre of a child’s world. I have had such a deeply moving and unforgettable time here.

“Thank you to the people of Reggio Emilia for welcoming me into a culture of care with such warmth and generosity.”

The tour marked a significant milestone in Kate’s return to royal duties, as her team continues to try to find the right balance between her ongoing recovery and her return to public-facing engagements. It also signals a new phase in her work highlighting the importance of early childhood development and is the first of several she is planning around the subject.

“Undoubtedly, this is a huge moment for the Princess,” said a royal aide. “Although there will be many highlights of 2026, I think this being her first official international visit, post her recovery, is a really significant moment for her.

“This visit is an important step in the Princess’s recovery journey. She takes great joy from this work. I think it is only right that her first international trip since her illness is one that is focused on an issue that she is committed to championing for decades to come and is a real issue that she wants to shine a spotlight on.

“This is an important step in her journey. It’s a global mission. She wants to look at other models around the world and really create a global conversation.”

‘I have had such a deeply moving and unforgettable time here’

Kate spent three months in Florence in 2000 before beginning her History of Art degree at the University of St Andrews and was thrilled to be returning to Italy and having a chance to practise the language.  While her vocabulary was limited, her accent and delivery were polished, and she could clearly understand a lot of what was being said to her.

In the town square, she was handed flowers, cards and poems, and elderly women kissed her hand.

“Parlo un po’ d’italiano,” she said, gesturing that she speaks only a little Italian before asking their names and telling them her name is ‘Caterina’. “Come ti chiami? Io sono Caterina.”

Speaking Italian 

Alice, aged five, said afterwards: “She asked my name in Italian. She spoke Italian very well.” Antonello Guerrera, UK correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, told HELLO!: “Kate is the most famous member of the British royal family in Italy. The King is incredibly famous too, but I think she’s the most loved because of her origins; she’s a commoner. 

“She’s not from the lineage of the royal family. This always made her more palatable in a country like Italy, which rejected the royal family a century ago. She’s young and glamorous and is a member of the royal family, but she comes from a normal background. 

“When she was ill, everyone was so shocked and the empathy was enormous… I felt like, almost on a daily basis, friends and family were asking me, how’s Kate, what’s going on? Will she get better?”

‘Wow, what an honour – I’m very grateful’

During her visit, the Princess met children, educators and experts and observed the “Reggio Emilia approach” in action at pre-schools, where creativity, nature and relationships are at the centre of learning.Science shows that these factors are crucial to a child’s development between the ages of 0 to 5 and influence the rest of their lives – research that has been at the heart of the Centre for Early Childhood, which Kate launched in 2021.

“This was something that she personally wanted to come and see,” an aide said ahead of the trip. “She’s energised, she’s enthused, she’s excited to see Reggio Emilia in action and meet the people here too.”

Her first stop on arrival was at the Town Hall, where she was greeted by the mayor Marco Massari and awarded the Primo Tricolore, the city’s highest honour, in recognition of her early years work.  

“Wow, what an honour. I’m very grateful, it’s very gratefully accepted,” she said, putting her hand on her heart.

From there, she moved on to the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre, which welcomes 130,000 people – researchers, teachers and families – each year who want to learn about the Reggio Emilia approach and how it supports social and emotional development.

Here, she rolled up her sleeves to take part in a clay workshop and revealed how she had played games in the Covid-19 lockdown with her children Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 11, and Prince Louis, eight.

“It’s encouraging children these days to slow down because their world is so fast-paced now – it’s getting them to notice things in their sensory environment as well,” she said.

When shown a table covered with multi-coloured plastic objects for children to play with, she said: “I did this in lockdown with the children, we tried to find as many objects in the house as we could with as many colours in the rainbow as possible.”

Later that day, she headed to the Anna Frank preschool for three to six-year-olds, which places a particular value on learning through creativity and relationships, and where teachers were moved to tears by her recognition of their work.

Fun in nature 

At the Salvador Allende preschool the following morning, Kate observed their outdoor, nature-based learning. Wearing a blazer by Italian brand Blaize Milano and a fabric bracelet by Atelier Molayem, a small label based in Milan, the Princess practised her Italian with children aged three to six and joined them for activities including handling newts from the pond, rolling “tree roots” from clay and marvelling at the school’s peaceful outdoor setting. 

Kate has been emphatic about the role nature has played in her recovery from cancer, and appeared in her element as she sat on a tree stump in the outdoor learning area.

“In the digital age that we’re living in it’s difficult not to forget that we are of nature and it’s important to connect to it,” she later said. “It’s a way to interact with a part of ourselves that we don’t get a chance to, often, in everyday life. I’m passionate about creating environments where love can flourish.”

She gamely joined the children in handling a newt from the pond, saying: “In most urban areas, even in central London, we have newts like this. It’s extraordinary; if you look and spend time, you realise how close it is to you. David Attenborough says you have to be able to experience nature in order to protect it – it’s so true.”

Watching two little girls painting, she said: “They can be far more expressive when they do things outside. Nature itself is creative and free-flowing. It’s a teacher to us in so many ways.”

“Can you teach me some Italian?” she asked one boy. “Come stai?” (How are you?) he asked her.

“Bene, grazie mille,” she replied, smiling. Another boy told her the word for “roots” is radici, which she repeated. “I’ve learned a new word, thank you,” she said. 

Kate’s final day also took her to REMIDA, Reggio Emilia’s creative resource centre, where businesses donate waste materials including wool, string, textiles and plastic tubes to help pre-school children with creative play.

“There’s a popular character called Bob the Builder, and he has a philosophy of ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’. And you embrace that here,” she said. “”It’s something as a mother, and I feel as a family, we do a lot is try to have at the back of our minds.”

Making pasta

The Princess rounded off her tour by making fresh pasta at the Agriturismo Al Vigneto, a farm-stay vineyard and farmhouse in the hills.

Kneading flour, oil, salt and water in a large bowl with her hands, she said: “When I do this at home it’s without a big bowl and it goes everywhere. It’s a good work-out.”

Christian Guy, Executive Director of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, told how Kate’s passionate belief in the importance of early childhood has driven the work of the centre, which is working to build a global alliance and develop a blueprint to ensure all children have the best possible start in life. 

“The Princess is here with her Centre to lead a new global conversation about this, believing we now need to focus on early brain development and nurturing the whole child with the same urgency and sense of mission as other global challenges like climate change,” he said. “If we truly want to get ahead of these challenges in the future, this is about genuine prevention.

“This has all been driven by the Princess of Wales’ leadership over more than a decade and her commitment to elevating early childhood as one of the most important issues facing society today.”

A Kensington Palace spokesperson tells HELLO!: “The Princess found the visit deeply moving on both a professional and personal level. She was incredibly grateful to the people of Reggio Emilia for the warmth and generosity they showed her throughout the week and she thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many families, educators and members of the local community.

“Being back in Italy also brought back many very happy memories from her time spent in Florence during her gap year and she spoke afterwards about what a special feeling it was to return. She was also very much looking forward to returning home to Windsor and sharing stories and moments from the visit with The Prince of Wales and their children. 

“To see a community place such value on emotional wellbeing, creativity, relationships and human connection in everyday life was especially powerful for her and she came away feeling genuinely hopeful about what is possible when children are nurtured in this way.”

Kate is naturally shy and reserved, but this trip demonstrated how vocal she has become about the things she cares about, her direct and personal messaging a far cry from what we have seen in previous generations of the royal family.

It may have been a flying visit, but in just over 24 hours, the Princess of Wales conquered Italian hearts and took a major step forward in her public work, furthering her ambition to make early childhood development a global conversation.