Interviewer: Caroline Rees

IN SUMMER, I always go to the west of Ireland for a couple of weeks. It's a simple, get-myself- in-shape holiday, which I love. I went first when Alex was getting ill. I'd never had a massage in my life, but I looked for somewhere to get a bit of attention, because I could feel my whole back and neck coiling up.

So I went for a number of years to a health centre called Cloona, in an old mill near Westport in Mayo. You walk, eat simple food and have a sauna and massage every day. It's like a retreat without the religion.

Now I stay with a friend I made there, who lives just into Galway, on a big lake.

Typically, we get up at 6.30, go for an eight-mile walk, come back and have two oranges and a grapefruit, do some yoga, then have a break and read. I read whatever novels are moving through on the Booker or bestseller lists. And I was reading the Koran in the summer. I just thought the level of prejudice now is so dangerous, we should all have a dip.

Lunch is soup and salad, then we go for another long walk or a swim, and have fruit for tea. After that, you tend to sleep rather well.

Walking and talking with a friend in a beautiful place is a joy. It's very green there, and I love the vast open spaces.

The rest of my holidays are usually more exotic - I take long weekends with my wonderful friend, Ruth, who's a criminal lawyer and a serious traveller. I go on two or three a year. With her, my days are a lot more self-indulgent.

We went to Dubai once. Ruth's a mad sunbather and I'm not, so she lay by the pool sunbathing and I lay there with a towel all over me, because I've got that fair Irish skin which goes freckly but not brown. I have to take suncream for babies to put on my face. And I always take anti-mosquito stuff, because I get bitten and come up in enormous bumps.

Dubai doesn't sound like the sort of place to go - it's all modern skyscrapers. On the other hand, there's a museum of old Dubai, where you get some sense of the harsh life people had in the Arab world before oil, and they have the most amazing gold and spice markets.

Ruth loves planning holidays and has all the guidebooks, so I just turn up. Then, when I'm there, I suddenly get fascinated by the place and have to read all about the history. In The Gambia, we went to James Island, where they took the slaves from the hinterland. Even though I've read a lot about slavery, no amount of reading is as immediate as going there yourself and standing on those dungeon stones.

I've been quite a good influence on Ruth - we do some healthy things on our trips, though she still insists that we then go out in the evening for a good meal and a nice bottle of wine.

I've travelled a lot for work - to Nepal, to Kalimantan, in Borneo, and to the west of China, for example.

There's nothing like going to a place where you'll have some interaction with the people, so you get a deeper understanding of the country. As a result, there are some countries I'm enormously fond of, such as Rwanda. I know everyone thinks about the genocide, and quite rightly, but it's incredibly beautiful.

I was there not long ago doing reports on its first elections for the Today programme, and we thought the listeners might like to hear about the gorillas as well. They're so lovely. They sit there scratching and eating leaves, and have naughty children playing around. The guides only allow a limited number of people in, and you can go quite close - maybe 10ft away - but not too close, because they can catch our germs. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime things to do.

Mind you, I think you can probably have an interesting holiday anywhere. I went to Portugal once with Alex. We booked at the last minute and went to one of the touristy bits. Lots of people were having the kind of holiday that I couldn't bear, where you lie on a crowded beach burning yourself, but we hired a car, went to Lisbon and had a wonderful time.

And I went with another friend to Fuerteventura for a week - we went on a boat trip to Lanzarote, which in my mind was mass tourism and plastic everything. But I was knocked out by it - it was this remarkable, desolate moonscape - brilliant for swimming. I even had a go at windsurfing. I got as far as whizzing along for a few moments, then I'd fall in.

I love swimming. I have a sister who lives in Cape Town, and the sea there is fantastic. You go swimming, look up and think the hill's moved, then you realise it's actually a whale.