Actor Maria McDermottroe
What was your best holiday?My husband John and I have done many journeys by train in Europe. John is a train fanatic and I've come to see his point of view. The Orient Express from Venice to Paris was great fun. You're travelling on a piece of history with wonderful food and views. The compartments are just like the Murder on the Orient Express movie. It's so exciting to travel right through Europe stopping at places like Innsbruck in the middle of the Alps. You also get to see a lot more of a country than you normally would while you just sit back and look out the window.
What was your worst holiday?I always associate holidays with having a nice time. Mentally, you manage to adjust to almost anything. So I've been in hotels where people take all the sun loungers or on holidays with bad weather. However, I adjust to it and have the mental frame of mind that I am on holidays.
If budget or work were not restrictions, what would be your dream holiday?I'd love to go back and spend three weeks in Rome. It's a city I adore because of the atmosphere, the living history and because there is so much to see. Standing in the Pantheon you think how it goes back thousands of years. An ideal holiday would be luxuriating in Italy for quite some time. I'd also love to plan a journey as far as I could by land, taking a train to the Far East.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?My husband John and daughters Nora and Gina, as it's so much fun to really chill out with them. They are great company and we all share relatively similar taste.
What's your favourite place in Ireland?Co Sligo, where I am from. We regularly go to Rosses Point, where my dad bought a small place after my mum died. Standing on the massive second beach, you have the mountains of Benbulben on one side and Knocknarea on the other. I get great joy out of seeing them in different lights.
Your recommended holiday reading?I am an absolute sucker for any type of good thriller set in Britain and the fatter the book the better. I have been known to have overweight luggage on Ryanair for bringing 11 or 12 books.
However, recently my brother bought me a Kindle. While I still love the smell of books and turning pages, it has solved a lot of travel problems.
I also really enjoyed Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea. I remember lying by the pool in Gozo telling myself to slow down as I didn’t want to finish the book because it was so good.
Where will you go to next?The island of Gozo [Malta]. We have been going there regularly for the past 12 years. It's sheer heaven and such a gorgeous island. I know a lot of locals and have been accepted as part of the community. It is a classic small island with a lovely quiet calm and the type of trust where people still leave their front doors open.
In conversation with
Genevieve Carbery
Maria McDermottroe costars with Marion O'Dwyer in their play Payback!, which runs as part of Absolut Fringe 2012. Further information and bookings at fringefest.com