Visiting Chakrabongse Villa is truly reminiscent of a walk through history offering a rare glimpse into the private domain of Siamese royalty, which is still very much lived in today by the original owners' direct descendants. For those unfamiliar with the story, HRH Prince Chakrabongse was a son of HM King Chulalongkorn and HM Queen Saowabha Phongsi. Educated abroad, Prince Chakrabongse was first sent to England and then in 1898 to Russia where he had personally been invited by Czar Nicholas II. It was in St Petersburg in the spring of 1905 that he met and fell in love with a red-headed Russian girl named Catherina Ivanova Desnitskaya, affectionately called Katya. Without notifying either the King or the Czar, the couple eloped and were married in a church in Constantinople in 1906. The King and Queen of Siam did not take kindly to the news; however, Queen Saowabha eventually relented, particularly after the birth of Prince Chula Chakrabongse (Narisa's father), her first grandchild, in 1908.