This week, Ciarán Cuffe TD shares his memories and plans
What's your earliest holiday memory?
Walking across a road in Donegal to pick blackberries and almost being run over by a Morris Minor on a family holiday in the 1960s.
What was your worst holiday?
I was teaching sailing in southern Italy, near Brindisi, in 1997. One night there was a shoot-out on the beach below us between cigarette smugglers and the Italian navy. We all cowered under the tables for an hour while both sides fired their guns at each other with more attention to bravado than accuracy. Thankfully, no one was injured. The following morning there were cartons of cigarettes scattered up and down the beach.
What was your best holiday?
I cycled across the US in 1986. After eight months working in Manhattan I headed out to Neah Bay, an Indian reservation near Seattle, on the Pacific coast, and then cycled back to the east coast with a tent, a sleeping bag, my ten-speed Raleigh Carlton and a change of clothes. I saw some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet and met the friendliest people.
If budget or work were no restriction, what would be your dream holiday?
I'd love to travel to Timbuktu, in west Africa. I've been fascinated by that part of Africa since I read William Seabrook's The White Monk of Timbuctoo. Twenty years ago I got as far as Barcelona, to take a boat to Algiers and head across the Sahara, but I gave in to the charms of Barcelona.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday?
Tom Waits, John Lurie and the Italian actor Roberto Benigni. We'd have a whale of time. I have visions of Benigni cooking rabbit with rosemary and olive oil over a campfire, following his mother's recipe.
What's your favourite place in Ireland?
That would be Mick Wallace's Quartier Bloom district, beside the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin. It's the best of all worlds: the bustle of city life, the smell of the sea coming up the Liffey, the sound of the Luas and the taste of good Italian coffee in the Panem coffee shop on Ormond Quay.
What holiday reading would you recommend?
Probably The Kitchen Diariesby Nigel Slater. I love the way he has organised a cookbook around the months of the year and the produce in season.
Where to next?
We're renting a cottage on Inis Oírr, in the Aran Islands. We had three glorious weeks of sunshine there last summer while the monsoon raged in Dublin. We're heading out west at the end of August for a week, and hopefully the sun will shine again.
In conversation with Fiona Gartland
• Ciarán Cuffe is the Green Party TD for Dún Laoghaire