While his relatives and his subjects tiptoe around the mere thought of the Queen’s death, Charles has become a proxy head of state for his mother, while his own children have helped garner massive positive press for the royal family. (Some two billion people around the world tuned in to watch Meghan and Harry’s wedding and their baby news is a global preoccupation.) So, on May 7, when I boarded a plane with the Prince of Wales and his wife of 13 years, the Duchess of Cornwall, bound for an official royal tour through France and Greece, the couple was in high spirits.

ON THE ROAD

Since 2016 the royal family and the prime minister have shared a jumbo jet for long-haul flights. (Previously, they had to charter aircraft or, worse, fly commercial.) The RAF Voyager, a massive military tanker based on an Airbus A330 capable of air-to-air refueling and missile detection, was ordered by David Cameron and refitted at a cost of £10 million.

Impressive yet discreet, the aircraft is gray and blue inside and out, with 158 seats in three cabins on one deck. As it sits on the tarmac of R.A.F. Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, and its two pilots and eight cabin crew prepare for flight, what would be the business class on a commercial plane fills up with Clarence House staff members: dark-suited, solemn-looking private secretaries, personal protection officers (P.P.O.’s), the royal doctor, a valet, Communications Secretary Julian Payne, and the Prince’s equerry, Major Harry Pilcher, as well as Hugh Green and Jacqui Meakin, the Duchess’s longtime hairdresser and stylist. In the rear cabin are dozens of uniformed military personnel—engineers, soldiers, baggage handlers, and other tactical officers—along with about five members of the British press who regularly report on the royals. And me. All journalists are later invoiced for their flights—the cost being comparable to an equivalent full-fare coach seat. Finally, after about an hour, a large black car pulls up to the front stairs of the plane. As soon as Their Royal Highnesses climb aboard, into the first-class cabin, the Voyager roars into the sky and cabin attendants in blue military uniforms offer beverages, including good Moët, to passengers. The atmosphere is one of restrained elegance. Typically, midflight, Camilla will appear for a few moments in the rear cabin, prompting all military personnel to immediately stand at attention.

“He figured out a very long time ago that he was going to be Prince of Wales for a very long time.”

Though he’s not yet a head of state, the Prince of Wales is received like one wherever we land. In Nice, a military band plays the British and French national anthems and an honor guard stands at attention as T.R.H. disembark onto a red carpet at the end of which stands a long convoy of official vehicles.

Our first stop is Villa Masséna, an ornate Belle Époque-era art museum, where a memorial to the 86 victims of the 2016 Bastille Day attack on the Promenade des Anglais has been erected. Payne jumps out of a car. “The first rule of royal tours is don’t get left behind!” he cautions me as he sprints ahead.

T.R.H. have come to meet survivors, their families, first responders, and other Nice citizens in the villa’s garden. They lay a bouquet composed of Camassia leichtlinii (Caerulea Group), Narcissi ‘Actaea,’ Viburnum x carlcephalum, and lilies of the valley, all gathered from the Prince of Wales’s garden at Highgrove, his country house.

Next, the convoy speeds off to Èze, perched in the hills outside Nice, for a walkabout through the narrow, winding cobblestone streets. Citizens and tourists pour out of shops, cafés, nooks, and crannies, treating Charles and Camilla as impeccably suited rock stars, which is how it goes all week.

While their agenda includes many stately private events at palaces, embassies, and such, the action unfolds in open streets and squares, where they shake hundreds of hands. (No germophobes here: I never saw any hand sanitizer deployed.) These walkabouts are often mapped out in advance by the Prince’s security detail, but can be unexpectedly fluid. The plan for a visit to Nice’s bustling flower market, for example, calls for “three designated points” for T.R.H. to visit, but allows for “some off-piste walking.” Meaning: Charles goes wherever he wants.