My Favourite Holiday Liza Goddard

Actress Liza Goddard reveals her love of sightseeing.

Liza Goddard has been a familiar face on our televisions since the 1960s.

Having appeared on programmes as diverse as Bergerac, Give Us A Clue and kids’ show Woof, her latest role is on stage for the Agatha Christie Theatre Company.

She is starring opposite Robert Powell in Black Coffee, the Queen of Crime’s first-ever play and the only one to feature Hercule Poirot.

The production comes to Edinburgh this month.

The one destination more magical than any other is a wonderful little place I went to called Ithaca, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea.

I’ve been a couple of times and we go specifically to one of four cottages built by a young Greek man and his wife, who came home from Australia where he had been living and built the houses on his land.

All you can hear from outside is the sound of goats’ bells, the sea and buzzards flying overhead. It’s very peaceful.

The journey to the cottages is magical, too.

You fly into Kefalonia, are driven over the mountains, and then a fishing boat takes you to the island, where a taxi is awaiting to transport you to the cottages.

The food is sensational. Every morning, freshly-baked bread from the village is delivered to the door. Sometimes we make food in the house, other times we travel into the village to go to the restaurant.

There’s a man in the village who makes his own wine and you can take an empty bottle that he fills up.

I’ll sit at the restaurant and read a three-day-old English language newspaper and enjoy the skewers and salads. The food is simple but delicious.

People come on day trips from Kefalonia, so all of a sudden the place is packed and then after lunch it empties again as they all go back on the boat.

I prefer to sightsee rather than just lie by the pool, and there are plenty of ancient sites in the area to visit, such as Odysseus’s palace.

Last year my son and I went on an interesting holiday to Italy, where we stayed on a buffalo farm. Each evening all of the guests would sit down together and have dinner. There was no menu, we just ate what we were given.

I also tried the buffalo milk ice cream and it was the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted.

As a child, my family always went to Cornwall on holiday. We would go every Christmas, Easter and summer, as my grandparents lived there and it’s where all of my ancestors are buried.

Black Coffee is at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh from Monday, March 24 to Saturday, March 29.