I ONCE helped Mel Smith crash a car through Tuscany. It was back when we were fab, the Lucas and Walliams of our day, and we hired a villa to write a film. But Mel decided we’d drive to Crossetto to gamble at the races. We went for hours on “white roads” through the hills: at one point, the track ran out altogether, and we found ourselves hurtling through a wood, bashing into trees, then skidding into an abandoned quarry.

We ended up stuck in a gateway in one of those labyrinthine hill towns, unable to open the car doors. The whole village turned out to see the spectacle, smiting their foreheads in despair. We’d gone there to write a film and ended up starring in some demented car advert.

Ian Rankin, crime writer

WHEN I met Miranda at university, she tried to instil a spirit of adventure in me by taking me off to work in a vineyard in the Dordogne for six months.

It was a place called Castillion-la-Bataille, near Bergerac, run by an English-speaking couple. While I was there, I also worked as a swineherd — but that ended when I killed a pig. We used to tread the grapes, and were supposed to feed all the pips and skin to the pigs immediately, but I got drunk one night and left it to the next morning. By which time the pulp had fermented. The pigs got drunk, and one of them died of alcohol poisoning, putting an end to my swineherding career.

Rosemary Leach, actress

IN THE 1970s, I was filming Don Quixote and got to go to Spain for the first time. We were based in La Mancha, which was predictably hot and dusty, but I hired a car and went off to explore all sorts of wonderful places, such as Toledo, Guadalajara and Cuenca. Spain was relatively unspoilt then — it was like stepping back in time, wandering through these narrow streets lined with medieval houses. Of course, there are parts of the country that still have that slightly forgotten quality. I also find the fact that it’s right on the end of Europe rather magical.

Jan Ravens, impressionist

WE ONCE had a bizarre villa holiday in Italy. My husband, Max, booked the place at short notice on the web, and it turned out to be a castle with no air conditioning — you could either open the windows and be bitten to death by mosquitoes, or close them and boil alive. We had a cook who did parma ham and melon, pasta and greasy but delicious chips — every night. She obviously thought: “These English love their chips.” Finally, as a change, we switched to spaghetti bolognese — and for the next few days we were all violently ill, staggering around our huge castle being sick everywhere.

Roger Michell, film director

EVERY YEAR, I go with two colleagues to track down a wine we like — and speak to the people who make it, if possible. In 2004, we went to Slovenia to see Alex Simcic, who was lovely. He lives about half a mile from Italy. What’s shocking about that border is that the difference between Italy and Slovenia is so marked. Italy has towns with old centres, while in Slovenia there seemed to be very few towns at all. The medieval culture just seems to stop at the border. The landscape was wonderful, though, with beautiful meadows full of wild flowers.