The Wicklow mountains are said to be thick with gold. They’re the first thing you see when you fly into Dublin, with the strangely sloping conical head of the Sugar Loaf rearing up majestically in the distance.

The countryside is studded with tiny villages that act like the hearts at the centre of the great arteries that connect the amazing wineries of Languedoc, a kind of Frida Kahlo painting complete with angel topped sparkling fountains and tiny scrolls bearing inscriptions and dedications to viticulture’s long gone great and dead, each more picturesque than the last,

The Celts were a strange lot. Like the Egyptians, they believed the afterlife was a transition to something else, so created elaborate tombs to house their kings and queens.

I remember an old tv show called, The High Chaparral. Until I visited New Mexico, I had no idea what a ‘chaparral’ was. Or what I thought it should be. It so happens that chaparral proper only exists in parts of California and northern Baja

Paris. Fabulous. But the great places are usually very crowded. I like to go in the dead of winter when the trees are all bare and black and shaking again the frigid wind.

Think of Venice, think of Casanova, artist of love. He lived here for years until he was forced to flee after being imprisoned for years in the Doge’s Palace for committing many ‘public outrages against the holy religion.’

I took a bus from Ho Chi Mhin city to the jewel of the Vietnamese riviera, Nha Trang. The road was extremely bumpy, there apparently being no money in Vietnam for road renovation and improvement.

Bangkok, in search of temples. Outside the Grand Palace I met the person who turned out to be my host for the next four hours, a tuc-tuc driver who told me his first lie of the day, that the Grande Palace was not open until 12.30, but in the meantime he could take me to a few places (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more).

Ah, to be buried in Père Lachaise!! What more could you want? Jim Morrisson nearly went apoplectic trying to get the Parisian authorities to allow him to be buried there, and eventually succeeded, and, if his grave isn’t the most ideally situated, lost as it is behind a gigantic edifice to some French writer, it is still one of the most visited.

Trim by name, not by nature, for this sprawling mass of old masonry known as Trim Castle cries out for Hugh de Lacy, its original owner, to come back from the grave and set things right.

I had seen a postcard of this beach before I ever came to it, and I thought, no, it couldn’t be that beautiful.

Resplendent, smiling, wreathed in writhing snakes and adorned with skulls and talismans, the amazing carved goddesses gaze down from the ancient walls of the replica of the universe that is Angkor Wat.

Leaving Bangkok was more a sweet than bitter experience. The day before I went to the Damnoen Saduak, the tour mini van spending an hour collecting people

I like graveyards. The spookier the better. I like the cracked and crusted tombstones, the coverings of moss and ivy, the degraded stone and crumbling facings.

Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, is in a suburb of Bangkok, right beside the Grand Palace.

Westport is one of the most beautiful places in the world. When I arrived, the tide was out, marooning a number of boats amid the sand and bladderwrack.

An amazing camel shaped rock sits off the road at Pojoque, between Santa Fe and Espanola in New Mexico.

Everyone wants to go to ‘The Beach’. Leonardo Dicaprio has a lot to answer for.

This place rocks. When I moved to the area I practically furnished my apartment with the great stuff to be had here.

Sur. I have very special memories of this place. It is one of the most beautiful areas I’ve ever been to, even though it has suffered at the hands of tourism in recent years.

Sometimes you amble unawares into the most truly astonishing scenarios, that in retrospect seem...

Prague erupts like something out of Hans Christian Anderson, all spires and turrets and red tiled rooftops.

‘Lust’s passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.’ Thus spake the Marquis de Sade, perhaps while surveying the Luberon valley from one of his château’s windows in the hill town of Lacoste.

Jaques Majorelle, after spending years trekking through the deserts and mountains of northern Africa, settled for a while in Marrakech and created a most beautiful garden on the Rue Yves Saint Laurent.

It’s true. Once a month, Argentinian Tango invades the steps of the Santa Maria della Salute basilica in Venice, with the moon flooding the scene and people gancho and volcada to their hearts content.

My favourite arrondissement of Paris, Montmartre is lively and informal, buzzing with people sitting in cafes and eating the many delectables on offer.

What an amazing impression the gargoyles of Notre Dame in Dijon make, leering down at you with grotesque stone faces.

To call a visit to the Great Sphinx of Giza a highlight of one’s life has to be one of the all time biggest understatements.

Carcassonne looks like it was cut out of an animator’s scrapbook of fantastic castles. But this is the real thing.

If you don’t like churches, don’t go to Venice. There must be a thousand, from tiny little niche tabernacles to huge crumbling domed cathedrals.

In the early hours of a summer morning I visited the Cistercian Abbey of Sénanque in Provence near the crumbling hill town of Gordes. It was completely silent, with not a soul about.

Wat Benchamabophit gleams white and gold in the late morning sun, two huge singhas (lions) guarding the entrance to the Bot (ordination hall).