A My Hols celebrity travel special

Colin Firth, 47, became a household name after appearing as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, then as Mark Darcy (no relation) in Bridget Jones’s Diary. He stars with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan in the Mamma Mia! movie, which will be released on July 10. He is married to the Italian film producer/director Livia Giuggioli; they have two sons, Luca, 7, and Matteo, 4, and live in London and Italy

‘My first great adventure was a trip across America with my family in 1972. My father was working in Missouri, so I spent a year at junior high in St Louis.

I wasn’t crazy about the school days, but I adored the country – there are so many versions of the planet on one continent. Each school vacation, we took off on a road trip. The first Christmas, we drove south to Baton Rouge, hugging the shining Mississippi River all the way down through Mississippi state, Tennessee and Memphis, then into Louisiana.

My hols: Michael Caine

The actor has been a bum in Paris, a callow youth in Cannes and a superstar in St Paul de Vence. Not a lot of people know that

My Hols: Anastacia

The American pop star Anastacia recently threw a lavish wedding party in Mexico - but didn’t break the bank

• Frequent flyer: Erin O'Connor

BACKGROUND

• My hols: Phil Daniels

• My hols: Roger Moore

• My hols: David Mitchell

• My hols: Tracey Emin

• My hols: Colin Firth

BACKGROUND

• My hols: Ricky Gervais

• My hols: Sam Robards

• My hols: Jimmy Carr

• My hols: Johnny Vegas

• My hols: Moby

Related Links

• My hols: Sam Robards

Everything from the landscape to the vegetation to the people blew me away. Americans are bursting with warmth and friendliness. When our old Volkswagen broke down – which it did frequently – people fixed our car and offered us hospitality with no expectations. In the current climate of negativity about US foreign policy, it’s something Europeans don’t realise unless they’ve travelled the real small-town America.

I married an Italian 10 years ago, and we spend a good deal of time in Rome and Umbria, but my mastery of the Italian tongue remains only functional, despite many of my crucial family relationships being conducted entirely in the language. It’s rather absurd to try to speak Italian unless you have got the hands right.

Their expressions integrate with their body language, whereas Brits zero in on wordplay. For example, there’s no Italian word for “wit”, which is bizarre, because there are certain areas of English-speaking society that wouldn’t be able to function without it.

I was in Nigeria as a toddler and I have things that pass for memories, but they’re probably vivid reedited versions of memories. I haven’t been back to West Africa, but I went to Ethiopia for Oxfam a few years ago. I was prepared for the poverty, but not to fall in love with the country so forcibly.

I had an idea of Ethiopia based on the images of famine in the 1980s – and those parched regions we’re all familiar with do exist – but we stayed in lush mountain regions, surrounded by breathtaking beauty and abundant wildlife. You couldn’t tell the churches or mosques apart except by the cross or crescent on their tin roofs – and people lived incredibly harmoniously, stripped of all of those shades of difference.

I love the desert: every single change of light or movement of the sun is reflected in the landscape. One of the most unforgettable things I’ve seen was when I was in Tunisia filming The English Patient. We were in the northern Sahara, a place called Tozeur, where there’s a vast shott, or salt lake.

It’s actually a crunchy, soggy salt plain that stretches out for miles either side and has the quality of a lunar surface, or silvery snow. In certain light, you couldn’t see the horizon, and a dilapidated bus that had sunk into it looked as if it were suspended in midair. At sunset, the lake became a mirror reflecting the brilliant, blood-red sky – it was spectacular.

Everyone who’s travelled has places that loom largest in their affections, and for me it’s the west of Scotland. I first holidayed there with a friend when I was 25. We were pretty tame – no hiking boots and hostile terrain, just an amble through the farm gates and up the hill.

Then I filmed around Loch Fyne a few years ago, around the time I was about to get married, and it seemed imbued with an impossibly romantic glow. I’ve since met two other actors who got married next to the loch, so there’s probably some nuptial element in the waters. Perhaps I should bottle it.

I opened an eco-shop in London last year, called Eco [on Chiswick High Road], and now I’m very conscious of my carbon footprint. I’ve found that casually hopping on a plane to go somewhere for fun is not a decision I can take without thinking. Yet while there are people out there who say flying has to stop, I can’t go along with that in the absolute.

Economic development, conflict resolution, the health of economies and exposure to other cultures and experiences – it’s all too richly rewarding, isn’t it?’

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