Dermot O'Leary

0:00Dermot O'Leary: Today's episode is supported by Cetaglia, the UK's leading Italian holiday specialist. Dermot's all-time favourite destination today is in Italy, Puglia, especially Salento where he has a holiday home. And once you've been, it is easy to see why. It's all whitewashed towns, crystal clear waters, incredible food and that slower sun-soaked pace of life that Italy does so well. It's also a part of Italy that still feels a little more under the radar, but completely magical once you discover it. Down in Salento, right at the heel of Italy's boot, you've got miles of coastline, beautiful baroque towns like Lecce, and some of the best seafood in the country.

0:39Dermot O'Leary: If that's the kind of Italy you're dreaming of, Citalia can help you experience it in the best way possible. With over 95 years of expertise, no one knows Italy like Citalia. Their Italy experts specialise in tailor-made trips and multi-centre holidays, helping you see more of Italy in a way that feels completely personal. From hand-picked hotels in the best locations to carefully curated itineraries that go beyond the obvious, they make planning your Italian escape effortless. And with Citalia's book with confidence promise, you'll have 24-7 support so you can relax into that Italian way of life.

1:14Dermot O'Leary: So if Dermot has inspired you to discover somewhere like Puglia or anywhere else in Italy, visit Citalia.com to start planning today. That's C-I-T-A-L-I-A dot com. Thank you to Citalia.

1:34Dermot O'Leary: Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Holly Rubenstein, and here each week I uncover the seven chapters of my guest's travel diaries. From the first place they fell in love with to their all-time favourite and hidden gems, we uncover the travel experiences and destinations that have shaped their lives. Today's guest is one of the UK's most recognisable voices and faces.

2:00Hannah O'Leary: They go, give us your shoes. They go, what? They literally take your shoes off and they put them, shoes in the bag, but the bag says no shoes, no news. I just remember saying something and getting a laugh or getting a reaction. And just for a second, I smelled blood. And I was like, this is what I want to do. I'm Irish, but I'm not from Ireland, if that makes sense. And so you feel completely at one with the country. And I feel very at home there. I feel like I am from there. And I'm not from there at exactly the same time. And I woke up and it just absolutely, you know when you know. And I ran.

2:30Hannah O'Leary: I was running over, kicking people in the head and stuff. But I was like, I'm so sorry, so sorry. And I got to what I thought was the toilet. that there's a broom cupboard. I am never happier than when I'm driving around in a dusty espadrille and a T-shirt on low-top on and I'm just swimming in the sea, picking up stuff for dinner and coming home. And it's, you know, I've had the best meals of my life are on plastic plates at the side of a beach down there.

2:51Dermot O'Leary: That was Dermot O 'Leary. He has been such a constant in British life for years. From hosting The X Factor to his Friday morning slot on This Morning to his weekend shows on BBC Radio 2, He's just one of those broadcasters who is so familiar and feels incredibly easy to listen to. And he's had such a varied career presenting everything from the Brits to the BAFTAs and his most recent series, Taste of Ireland with Dermot O 'Leary, which is back for a second season on ITV. I spoke to Dermot last week. He couldn't have been more lovely. He's exactly like you'd hope he'd be. And what I loved about this conversation is how much of his life has been shaped by travel.

3:34Dermot O'Leary: He grew up in an Irish family going back and forth between England and Ireland with those long childhood journeys to Wexford becoming some of his earliest memories. And that sense of place, of identity, of belonging really runs through everything he talks about in this episode. And so before we get on to it, I want to share the next chapter in my travel diaries. And, you know, if I was being asked about my hidden gem chapter now, I think this would probably be my answer. Earlier this year, I took my family for a long weekend to Priesterreg Eco Resort in Leogang in Austria. So Leogang itself is one of those alpine regions that's incredibly easy to get to.

4:18Dermot O'Leary: It's just a short drive from Salzburg Airport, but it still feels very under the radar. and it has these dramatic almost dolomite style cliffs that envelop you wherever you are but really without the crowds we didn't hear many british people there when we were there which always gives it hidden gem status as far as i'm concerned the resort is made up of these beautifully designed chalets which are scattered across the hillside many around a lake and in the winter when we were there it's frozen which is in itself magical but you can imagine how incredible it is in the summer when you can swim in it and these aren't just cabins they come with outdoor baths saunas hot tubs all facing out onto the mountains i think i got the most instagram messages from you guys ever about a stay when i was sharing the interior shots because they have these floor to ceiling windows all positioned to face out onto the alpine scenery and just really dramatic very tasteful earthy aesthetic and I know a lot of you love a villa within a resort type setup that's what we're always looking for as a family so what's great about Priester Egg is that you have your own house with your own fully equipped kitchen and a fridge full of treats when you arrive but you also have access to the resort spa pools and restaurants and there is this infinity pool that juts out of the mountainside looking straight across the valley one of those views it just like takes your breath literally away i gasped when i saw it and beyond that that is part of this award-winning spa again the aesthetic oh my god to die for food wise hits really nice balance the main restaurant has a kind of traditional austrian feel but without tipping into anything too heavy or old-fashioned and the food is all beautiful locally sourced another thing that they really nail is the family element although i wouldn't say it was an overtly family friendly property they really accommodated us well and breakfast is brought to your chalet each morning and set up on the table for you worth saying it's not ski in ski out but the slopes are just five minutes away by a shuttle and what you gain in tranquility more than makes up for that i'd say so if you're looking for somewhere to really switch off but still have world-class skiing on your doorstep or in the summer the most spectacular alpine walks priest reg is a very very good shout you can see more of it on my instagram highlights i'd say i mean this isn't an ad but like book it before everyone finds out about it i think the travel influencers once they see it it's gonna go crazy priest reg eco resort a big thank you to them for having us okay so let's get started with dermot's travel diaries from those childhood summers in ireland to traveling solo across America, winter escapes in Norway, and the Italian region that's completely stolen his heart.

7:10Dermot O'Leary: Let's buckle up and get started. Here's Dermot. Dermot O 'Leary, welcome to The Travel Diaries. It is so lovely to see you. How are you today?

7:23Hannah O'Leary: I'm very well-traveled. I'm very good. I feel very rested. I've slightly jet-lagged. I just got back from holiday oh where were you i went to the maldives a place called saliva fushi

7:35Dermot O'Leary: oh my goodness that's an iconic hotel it was a really lovely kind of break me and me and the

7:42Hannah O'Leary: family we haven't had sort of a proper holiday for a long time and just the three of us and it was you know it's everything you want it to be you know it's that lovely kind of combination of just you're just relaxing you're around nature you know and they have this great thing where they take you get on the boat and um and they just come up come up to you with a bag and just go give us i mean not like this but they go give us your shoes you go what and they literally take your shoes off and like they make you take your shoes off and then and they and they put them shoes in the bag and they just and they give you the bag well they didn't even give you the bag but the bag says no shoes no news and that's their thing it's like forget about it no shoes literal barefoot luxury it was one and me and my wife just turned to each other like three or four of days into it and went why do we ever pack shoes when we go on holidays like this because you know and and we're not sort of you know you we know the vibe that and our vibe is never sort of um you know it's never heels by the pools you know what i mean it's always very quite low low-key and and lovely uh but even there you're like yeah you know i'll bring some some yeah some esprit drills or something you never use any of them you just walk around for a whole week in Barefoot.

8:51Hannah O'Leary: It was wonderful. We had the best time.

8:52Dermot O'Leary: That is so gorgeous.

8:54Hannah O'Leary: My son snorkelled for the first time and he loves the water and he thinks like he saw, we saw a stingray over there and saw it just eating. So it was on the bottom of the ocean of the bed, like a couple meter and a half down and he was just kind of shifting all the sands and then moved off and did the self-sweat. He now thinks he sees that every time he snorkelled.

9:19Dermot O'Leary: You set the

9:20Hannah O'Leary: bar high i said to him doesn't it's not always gonna be like this buddy uh yeah so it was the

9:26Dermot O'Leary: best time oh that's so nice and well deserved because you're the busiest man in in showbiz so i'm glad that you got a chance to properly switch off it is a very special place i'll tell you what

9:38Hannah O'Leary: it does as well holly i travel i think travel always does this it it just you come back and it doesn't last forever but you come back with a sense of priorities and i'm not particularly into self-help or anything like that but it's it just it's that notion of you know what don't those five emails that you don't get around to answering that day are still going to be there tomorrow so just try and give yourself chunks and manage your diary better and just go you know just do two things in half a day and that's fine rather than try and cram six or seven in which just

10:12Dermot O'Leary: makes you so stressed you say on a on a day of busy promo yeah yeah but today's been you know

10:19Hannah O'Leary: Today's been busy, but it's been the right side of busy. You know, I was still able, I went down the ponds and had a swim this morning. Oh, nice. You know? And so, you know, I did the school run, all the sort of like the small little blessing stuff that I just, you know, you, you know, the big stuff in your day, really, the important stuff in your day.

10:37Dermot O'Leary: Yeah. Travel always helps to shift perspective, I think. And we've got a lot of travel to cover today because we're going to go on a journey through the seven chapters of your life's travel diaries, Dermot. Oh, yeah.

10:48Hannah O'Leary: Great. Holy moly.

10:50Dermot O'Leary: I know. And we kick off with chapter one, which is your earliest childhood travel memory. What would that be?

10:57Hannah O'Leary: It was very easy. It was, it was all, and it was my earliest moment for a long time. Um, it was back to Ireland. And so, um, and so many people, I'm sure your listeners resonate with this. Um, if they're from Irish families, but it was, you pack the car up, uh, you drive in an old car down old roads. so just to contextualize that for anyone that wasn't born in the 70s or 80s when you when you got in a car back then and you drove you that was just for the day there was no like if you were lucky and stopping a little chef um yeah and i loved a little chef god if they could just bring back little chefs was so great and not even roasted happy eaters happy yeah i could take a happy eater but it was all about a little chef so that was oh god yeah and um there's no reason as to why little chef shouldn't still be here i'm livid anyway you drive through wales or through through england then then um over the bridge through wales always stop somewhere inst david's or fish card where we had we had relatives and then we would get the ferry back and then we'd see uh tusker view which is the the lighthouse in wexford which is very important to me and my family and I've named um I've got a trust uh that um it's like a mentorship scheme that gets underrepresented kids in television and we get the mentors and I've called it the Tusker Trust because it was the last lighthouse my last piece of Ireland my father and my mother saw as they

12:27Dermot O'Leary: emigrated and it's the first piece you see when you go back oh that's so nice uh so it always

12:31Hannah O'Leary: feels like home and my dad grew up in the street called Tusker View where you could see the lighthouse from the from the street so you see the lighthouse and then you pull it and invariably there were always two ferries there was either the three in the afternoon ferry which we never took or the three in the morning ferry which we always took so you sort of travel through the night uh and then you get into wexford in the morning and it would either be i mean you couldn't really stay with family because my family didn't have the room for us to stay with there's four of us and my father grew up in a kind of two up two down same as my mother kind of very small irish sort of working class terrace house and so we would do a lot a lot of people would do which we spent a lot of my summers in caravans and by the beach and it's funny talking about food and stuff with uh with doing the promo a lot of people mention it my earliest one of my earliest food memories is my mum cooking up mackerel and just stinking the place out this tiny caravan was staying in stinking the place out of uh just frying this mackerel and i was just enchanted she just fried this mackerel in butter and i was in heaven that's where i fell in love with mackerel so it definitely it was Ireland, specifically Wexford, and these gorgeous beaches of Karn and Corakloe, which still are so indelible on me and so formative in my upbringing.

13:49Dermot O'Leary: Oh, sounds so idyllic being right there on the beach so that you can have that kind of quintessential childhood summer holiday.

13:58Hannah O'Leary: You know what it is, Holly? It's banana sandwiches on the beach. It's chocolate digestives. and the thing about Ireland is it's kind of familiar and alien at the same time so the ice creams are a bit different and the chocolates are a bit different and the crisps are a bit different and all of that kind of, it was this kind of relatively run-of-the-mill stuff but it just, as a kid, and still even now

14:21Dermot O'Leary: It's like a little bit exotic

14:22Hannah O'Leary: Well, I'm never happier than when I'm in a foreign supermarket

14:26Dermot O'Leary: Yes, same here

14:27Hannah O'Leary: I could spend hours in a foreign supermarket

14:29Dermot O'Leary: So what are the things that you'd always buy when you went to Ireland?

14:33Hannah O'Leary: Two ice creams. One ice cream is called, I mean, their soft ice is amazing, but they'd have an ice cream called a loop-the-loop, which was basically sort of a bit like a zoo with chocolate. So it was lemon and lime covered in chocolate. So it was almost like a, what are those Jamaican limes or something? You know, the bold sweets. It tasted a bit like that in ice cream form. And then they had a thing called an ice burger. They're not wafers, like dark biscuits with vanilla ice cream in the middle. but their vanilla ice cream was always white like ice like hb icy white uh and so that was huge and then and then the crisps were obviously tato's and then there's a crisp that i was obsessed with and still am uh called rancheros which is like a kind of a it's a bacon flavor because it's like a puffed up frazzle basically it's yeah it's next level so fun and i mean obviously you're you're

15:21Dermot O'Leary: back with a new series of taste of island and we're going to chat about that you know as the interview goes on but it's interesting how the memories that you're associating with your childhood travel there are sensory memories they're food memories yeah food that really like is really

15:37Hannah O'Leary: transportative for you yeah food and smells and um like just that taste of the sea as well always reminds me of childhood because and even now like all our time that's not in London and I love London but all my time it's not in London is by and large spent by the coast because it's my mum and dad in Ireland by the sea our Norwegian family by the fjords we spend a lot of time in Italy by the sea and um my wife's family are from Broadstairs so it's all kind of coastal and all very salty

16:06Dermot O'Leary: oh lovely what's your so is your wife part Norwegian yeah she's half Norwegian yeah and you've described yourself as almost like a child of two fathers because you were living in London in colchester um and you know you had an english life during the week and an irish one on the weekends you said i think and and when you went back to to wexford um or when you went to wexford not went back when you went to wexford um did it feel like you were returning to kind of the real world of your your parents talked about at home yeah yeah it's funny you say not going back but

16:43Hannah O'Leary: it always felt like going back it did it always you know it always felt and i've sort of i wouldn't go as far as i was confused but or conflicted but just you are sort of when you're and i speak to this a lot with i've got two of my mates that are second generation jamaican and they kind of feel the same way in that you know and i've talked to ali about this a lot ali hammond uh we've got we've got this kind of shared experience and the jamaican and irish experience which is a similar experience anyway. But you feel at once, like I've sort of come to terms with it now, and I've said it without even thinking it, and so many people have come up to me and said, since I've read an interview or saw an interview I said, and they've gone, that really, there's a real touchstone for me, which is like, I'm Irish, but I'm not from Ireland, if that makes sense.

17:31Dermot O'Leary: Yeah, yeah, totally, it does, yeah.

17:33Hannah O'Leary: And so you feel completely at one with the country, and I feel very at home there. and I feel like I am from there and I'm not from there exactly at the same time. And also I love Britain and Britain and Ireland have got such a complex but brilliant relationship. You know, there's a real fondness certainly for the British to the Irish and also vice versa, I think. You know, there's a lot of complex history there and there's a lot of, but there's also a lot of commonality there.

18:01Dermot O'Leary: Yeah, exactly. Today's episode is brought to you by Airbnb. and B. One thing I have learned from years of traveling is that the trips you remember most aren't always about the big headline sites. It's that feeling of getting under the skin of a place. Some of my most memorable stays have been in real homes, in real neighborhoods where you start to experience that quieter rhythm of somewhere. The morning coffee spots, the local park around the corner, the little details that make a place feel lived in. And of course, many of those homes belong to people who are simply away for a few days or heading off on their own travels.

18:41Dermot O'Leary: Instead of leaving their home empty, they choose to host on Airbnb during that time. It's a practical way to unlock a bit of extra value from your home, whether you're away for a long weekend or a longer stretch of time. And at the same time, it allows someone else to experience your area in a more personal local way if you've ever been curious about hosting getting started is even easier than you expect your home might be worth more than you think find out how much at airbnb.co.uk forward slash host thank you to airbnb and so getting to go back and make this second season how did it feel getting back onto irish soil and and getting to spend that time there i worked out

19:27Hannah O'Leary: that I mean it's very familiar to me now and it always has been it always felt like home uh one of my homes but um like I was there eight times last year so it you know it's eight times definitely yeah definitely there a lot uh but what I loved about the second series is and actually one of the reasons why I wanted to do it this is even though the first series we spent a lot of our time we spent in Leinster and specifically Wexford obviously where you know my whole family from and that felt very familiar to me what I loved about this this series is it doesn't it's not that it doesn't feel familiar but it feels very much like a voyage of discovery as well so I've never so I'm sort of ticking off um these unbelievable places that I've always wanted to visit never been to never because the idea of of coming home I don't know where you're where you're at what your origins are I'm picking up a Jewish name so I don't know if it's if it's

20:20Dermot O'Leary: european or central european or it's actually similar to what you well origins i guess um eastern european but similar to what you were saying in that i'm uh an american but who's always lived in england so i have an american passport so that same kind of like dual identity

20:37Hannah O'Leary: yeah but when you go would you go back to america much when you were a child and see your family every school holiday every school right and whereabouts was that miami okay so if you go to Miami the idea of you then you turn around to your family and saying we're going to get to California for two weeks you'd be excommunicated right like the idea that you go back and then go somewhere else and not spend your time with them would be so not even alien treacherous would be like you know like I would just like my family just wouldn't have spoken to my mother and father had we gone back and then gone we're going to go to Kerry or we're going to get to go away so growing up I never got to know the west of the country at all so there's and the north of the country at all so it's been so it was either Dublin for the day or Wexford and Dublin even only came later when I was a bit old so really getting to know the north and getting to know the west and like friends of mine who are from the north have always said are we hot like the people in north of Ireland holiday in Donnygore in the same way people in Dublin holiday in Wexford so Wexford's called the sunny southeast yeah uh and it puts that name to the test let me tell you Holly but uh but in Donnygore so a lot of people a lot of people would would would have the holidays in Donnygore and so I've always wanted to go there and it's no way you pass through it kind of reminds me not in its not in its um uh in its geography but it has the same sort of vibe as Norfolk in that you're not going through it so if you're going there you are going there and and that kind of shapes an identity I think and but Donnie Gaw and Sligo really captured my heart.

22:15Dermot O'Leary: Oh it's that kind of wilder more untamed part of Ireland that's just brilliant and you begin the series on the Causeway Coastal route which is one of the most like cinematic drives in the world for anyone who hasn't done that journey how would you describe that route and if they wanted to kind of follow in your footsteps what would you tell them not to rush? i mean don't rush the drive and and sometimes we have this brilliant producer called connell

22:43Hannah O'Leary: uh who's our fixer over there connell's amazing he's brilliant it's always great to have a local fixer the problem with local fixer is they are used to seeing what they're seeing so he's he'd happily drive 70 miles an hour through the most beautiful part of the island and i kept saying to him would you just slow down because i just stop so i can just take all this in um so don't like meander is what i'd say and it's an easy thing to say because you need to get from a to b that i would describe it as i'll tell you what i said we were filming for about three or four days last august and then we we filmed for a few weeks in august then we stopped for the weather because the winter closed in and i had other work back home and then we went back again in march so we just we literally just finished sort of two big chunks of filming and but when we're there in august we the weather was insane and i remember we put a drone up craig our camera and put this drone up and i said to the guys our team because we've got a very lovely tight team that's sort of done the whole series two series together it's only four six it's really lovely so we also we get on so well together they stay in the same hotels eat the same food just like break the same bread you know so we always have breakfast and dinner together and then spend most of the they eat it um but we um and i said to them you know like americans are going to watch this and they're going to do us under the trade descriptions act because we made it look like northern california it was just so gorgeous like these sheer beautiful cliffs sweeping the you know the glens of edge coming down into the sea the sea was incredible but i have never experienced weather like that in ireland for that period of time so so lucky absolutely epic yeah the one thing i would say i think my favorite town was a little town called ballycastle which is this gorgeous little uh beach town almost straight out of new england you know it's a real not clap aboard he was very irish but but full of lovely independent bakeries and shops and and just this cute and the weather was good this really lovely town to kind of grow up in and then as you sort of you round the you know you get up to you get past um uh port russian port stewart and you get out there toward pretty much towards Derry and it's a straight shot and it's just this gorgeous long long long beaches um and and then and then you're pretty much in Donegal so it it's as a drive it's just that the Causeway Coastal is just the most spectacular epic sweeping so don't rush it whatever you do and just you know stop in the places and the food's great I mean we we went one of my favorite dinner we had there was in a restaurant called leah uh l-i-r and i think stevie's the name of the of the of the him and his wife and by the way everywhere we went was just good looking couples that have got together traveled the world come back and then started restaurants together and they're like you walk in and just go really good looking tattooed guys with beards oh come on like you feel so inferior and then just like powerhouse wives that run everything you know It was so impressive.

25:51Hannah O'Leary: The modern Irish dynamic. Yeah. They were in a restaurant called Lear. And they're sort of nose to tail seafood, which is pretty much my dearer of heaven. So everything in there, they're sort of used. So like the dips for the mayo and aleoli at the start were like Pollock skin or conter skin or something. Just crisp, deep, crispy and really salty, really good. Where was that? Yeah. That was in Coleraine.

26:17Dermot O'Leary: Which is near to...

26:18Hannah O'Leary: Which is, well, it's funny. I guess it's kind of inland from Port Russia, Port Stewart, by about five, six miles. It's on a river. It's not necessarily like a big foodie place, but they've got this restaurant there. And like a lot of these success stories, they started a lockdown. I think they started delivering lobster. They could get lobster from their friend, Paul, who was a local fisherman. And then he said, you guys should be doing this. And then it sort of just went by.

26:40Dermot O'Leary: Love that. Love that kind of story. Well, let's pause there for a sec and move on to chapter two of your travel diaries.

26:46Hannah O'Leary: and that's the first place that you fell in love with so i reckon france because when we realized we didn't have to go back to ireland every year and we fell in love with i fell in for the cormorne and norfolk because those are the places we were camping but our first holiday holiday we did a euro camp in france and it was two places one in the duodoin and then one in the atlantic coast and we drove down and and we've always loved camping as a family and i just remember and it's going to be it's going to be sights and smells and tastes again but it was that kind of beautiful dry heat of the dordogne i remember french fries and crepes on motorways you know and just that you know that lovely i mean there's something like a hot there's nothing like a hot french fry in france on the side of a motorway with mayo or whatever and and then just just a shit ton of crepes with like that crepes and confitou it was just i just lived off that and pan-a-chocolat literally the first time we ever had pan-a-chocolat when you were a kid you just think it's from the gods and then i think heading out to the atlantic and once again like you know i think we i think it was rouen we stayed in maybe um and my parents were pretty fearless you know my dad loved sailing so we went on a lot of kind of sailing not flotilla holidays but but dinghy holidays where we could went to turk went to turkey in 1987 i think before anyone was really going to Turkey.

28:11Hannah O'Leary: Yeah. Which bit? Do you remember? Yeah, we went to near Bodrum.

28:15Dermot O'Leary: Amazing coastline.

28:16Hannah O'Leary: Yeah, it's a gorgeous coastline. There was hardly anyone there then. And so they were kind of quite kind of go-getter and fearless for that. In that we didn't have an awful lot of money, but they just, I mean, it was probably quite cheap at the time as well going to Turkey. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say France.

28:33Dermot O'Leary: I love that, that kind of quintessential French summer holiday that we all all had where you know like probably similar not wearing shoes for a lot of the time running around on the grass you know yeah yeah so so transporting and we're in the chapter of falling in love when did you fall in love with broadcasting would you say what what what do you think was the moment where you were like this is the life for me

29:01Hannah O'Leary: There were two. I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. And then I realised the more I rehearsed, the worse I got. And I thought, maybe this isn't the life for me. And that was pretty much halfway through my drama with the ECSE. But we put on a concert when I was about 15, 16. I went to a lovely Catholic school, which was a state school. It wasn't particularly academically, particularly good school. It was a very, just with a small R is probably how I'd describe it. Like, you know, everyone left being a member of Amnesty, but probably didn't pass their maths GCSE.

29:39Hannah O'Leary: And we put on this concert and it would have been 1988. So around kind of live eight time, just after. And I compared it and I remember going out there and obviously I'm playing to a crowd of kids I know. and I just remember saying something and like getting a laugh or getting a reaction and just for a second I smelled blood and I was like this is what I want to do this is yeah and it wasn't I mean I suppose it was affirmation but I didn't I didn't I guess I didn't know it was affirmation because when you do this job and you become recognized you become famous you realize that chasing fame for fame's sake is pretty vapid really so it's then you're like well okay why am i doing this and we'll do it because i love two things like curiosity and empathy like they're the sort of if you haven't got those as a broadcaster you shouldn't be in the job right everything else you can learn and then my my first i had i wasn't like desperate i didn't just want to be on telly i want to be famous i wanted to learn the trade i wanted to i wanted to work in telly i studied politics and communications and so i never really i really have policies in history but there were more of just passions same as um same as food same as cooking and it was a period where i thought i might be a chef definitely there was a crossroads where i thought i might end up working in kitchens and i loved it and more front of house but learned how to be a chef as well and that was a that was a genuine fork in the road and i retook some exams past them and then i went to a really good sixth form in colchester that just nurtured me really well and I found I sort of found my way through exams there and I really enjoyed that and then then that's sort of where I took off really I would go to the library get this is pre-internet

31:24Dermot O'Leary: or pre-internet being accessible get the guardian guide which had the address of every production company in the country yeah and I wrote 300 letters and I got probably 200 no's 50 no replies a couple of maybes and I got one one or two interviews one for just work experience and

31:45Hannah O'Leary: one for a job and I went up and I got this job as a runner uh for a production company called Barrowclough Carey and I was their kind of office runner so I'd do everything and we lent out to different productions and and I loved it and I absolutely loved it and then about after about six months when someone says to you well you know you okay you're not going to get fired what do you want to do and i just put my head about the parapet and i just went well and i had to be careful about who i said it to i said well i really want to give presenting a go and this kind of quite gruff archive producer called freddie notage freddie said well i've got um i've heard about a screen test going across town for this new channel 4 show and i sent a glossy picture and i sent a cv didn't have anything else and i got callback after callback after callback and i got it and we did the pilot and something went wrong about the first take or something and once again i said something and the audience laughed and it just felt very at one and same thing i just smelt blood and i was like this is i can do this i know i can do this i might not be good yet but i know i can do it and and that's where that's where it started and i got an agent in the show out of it and and that's where and then i and then nothing happened really i then i then worked behind the scenes and learned my trade and I was a researcher and assistant producer and producer so you worked your way up yeah yeah and then and then I I was I was a researcher on a show called Light Lunch Mel and Sue's Light Luncheon if you remember that and they gave me the job of warming

33:12Dermot O'Leary: up the crowd as well as researching it's really interesting hearing that that that you um with like feeling off the live audience because I guess yeah you know you're doing live tv right with with a lot of the work that you're doing but I guess it's not to a lot of it isn't to an audience so did you like thrive the most when you're doing things like did you love shows like doing the x factor for example the most because there was like a live audience yeah you always feel like

33:36Hannah O'Leary: the crew of your audience you always feel like there's an audience there right and then i uh so i was doing warm-up and then andy peters was a guest on the show saw me do warm-up we had a couple and you know got chatting to him and he said look you know i'm starting this thing on channel four had a cup of coffee with him and he said like i can't give you a job but i'll give you screen tests i keep you in mind and i am so indebted to andy because he andy is in competitions andy yeah no way yeah what you have to understand about andy is if he wanted to andy could be in a running to be the next direction general of the bbc andy is whip it smart and when he when he if he'd have chosen to go down that route he'd be running channels now um but i think he just likes the gym too much and likes smoothies and wants an easy life because he he started t4 and he had he was able to buy the shows we watched so he was responsible for like dawson's creek and he produced the executive produced the show he studio directed the show from time to time which is an unbelievably difficult thing to do and he he was just he was just a great talent spotter And just a genuinely lovely guy.

34:54Hannah O'Leary: So just a brilliant man.

34:55Dermot O'Leary: So Andy gave me a screen test.

34:58Hannah O'Leary: I got the job. And then I was doing a magazine sports show with Margarita Taylor. And I was like, I'm so happy. And then Andy said, look, Ben Shepard's got to go and do a wedding. His best friend's getting married. And I want to get more than one presenter on T4. I want it to make it more of a stable. So will you and Margarita come and do live? And I remember I've never been more nervous in my entire life. We did it. Loved it. And then he kept us on.

35:23Dermot O'Leary: Wow what a great story I love that Andy was a big part of that and now you know you're like in a handful of kind of national treasure broadcasters that feel like a constant presence in our lives you know that I imagine a lot of people feel like they they know you do you feel like they actually only know a version of you though I don't know it's such a nice thing to hear that

35:47Hannah O'Leary: because you don't life goes so quickly don't think that that's the case but but it's really lovely when you hear it they definitely know you've got to be you on telly because you know people smell a fraud and and also if you're not you on television or radio you kind of shouldn't be doing the job you're doing right yeah um and i've you know i know people that still are quite reticent about and that's not about sharing oversharing or anything like that but I know sort of people some people are sort of reticent just to be themselves on television and I think they should be because that's why they got the job in the first place so um don't be afraid and people sort of state they see through uh um not a fraud but they see through those walls being put up you know um and like I said that doesn't mean you need to tell everyone everything about you all the time and when i'm with my son who i don't put any pictures of him online or anything i'm like you know i'm not i'm not like super super protective or anything but i would never have a picture then with you know at sort of family times family time but then if someone just comes up and they want a picture and they're respectful while i've got my child with me that's fine as well i'll just make sure you shoot that way and you know it's i i think they i always say that tv is you you is you at a party and you're a party is different to you reading a book at home you're a part you hosting a party is making sure everyone's got a drink and making sure everyone's happy and making sure because you invite them into your house and they're your guests and that's how i feel that's how i feel hosting tv is that's how i can compare it to it that is such

37:22Dermot O'Leary: great analogy today's episode is supported by ezra ezra is a company that offers full body mri scans using advanced imaging to screen for potential signs of cancer and other conditions across your major organs, essentially giving you a detailed, preventative look at your health. I have wanted to do one for years. And since becoming a mum of two, it's felt even more important to stay on top of things. So I recently went for an Ezra scan. And what really surprised me is that it's actually much quicker than you might expect, given that it's scanning your whole body. And my report came back quickly.

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39:00Dermot O'Leary: well we move on to chapter three and that is the place where you learned the most about yourself

39:05Hannah O'Leary: i travel in america on my own and i also travel in france and spain on my own by train i love traveling by train and i really and i actually look really like traveling on my own and but i took a rail pass for three months and i started in new york and did a w and ended up in seattle and ended up i ran out of money in seattle so i sort of stayed there for two weeks before i flew so I got to see out really well but you get when you travel on your own you get to know yourself super well even though I was quite young um and for and it's about holding your nerve because the first two days you absolutely shit yourself and go I'm never gonna I'm not I'm not I'm not gonna say a word to anyone for three months this is like I'm gonna live like a monk this is crazy and then very quickly you realize hey there's a lot of other people your age probably traveling yeah having the same experience yeah so i actually made a friend i made a guy called steve vallas in washington i went out and he was traveling with a guy and we got chatting in a hostel went out for dinner and a few drinks and had a great night and then i bumped into steve in new orleans completely apropos it's just like pre-mobile phone so when you bump into someone

40:15Dermot O'Leary: like when or when you when you lose someone they have got yeah and bumped into steve in uh in new orleans we had another great night and steve is australian and i kind of worked in hospitality

40:27Hannah O'Leary: for a long time and now he works in um some kind of finance job and steve swings by in london and i see him from like he calls me up if he's in town and we have a drink together it's the nicest guy that's so nice my point being that you bump into you can bump into people and then you before you know it you're you know you're having the best time with with people and you can dip in and dip out of that and it's still a kind of it's kind of a single experience and then it can be you know a formal kind of collegiate so traveling around america definitely was there a place on on that

40:56Dermot O'Leary: route that you uh thought was particularly surprisingly amazing well i needed to see

41:02Hannah O'Leary: new york for the first time to fall in love with it knowing that i was going to love it yeah i think seeing the pacific for the first time i mean la is a pretty intimidating place when you first go it took me a while to get to love la and i do love it now but when i first went i was like what is this um but but seeing the pacific i was on a train from new orleans to los angeles that's 44 hours and i was with this crazy guy older guy who we would run we'd get to a station they go we're going to stop here for 10 minutes to take our water or something and we'd run into town and run back just to see we could see the town and to start with he was doing i was like you're crackers man i'm not doing that and then i just like did it a couple of times so you think i'm just feel so alive my stuff my stuff's on that train if it's gone it's gone um and uh seeing the pacific for the first time was just and i stayed in this yeah i stayed in this lovely place weirdly even though i've been back to l.a so many times since i've worked there for so long lived there for a little bit and stuff i had never been back to this little town called homoza beach and it's just it's south of like venice uh-huh about six miles maybe and you know some venice is pretty rough now especially at night time uh but homoza is this cute little beach town and that's just a little yes really

42:18Dermot O'Leary: lovely oh gorgeous i love it i have to say i love la uh but the thing is is that the west coast is just changing so quickly that i think if you haven't gone back for a few years like you say venice is rough now i didn't realize that like i guess it's just changes so quickly yeah definitely

42:33Hannah O'Leary: same as san francisco yeah although i was in san francisco this year and i love san francisco and people say oh san francisco is kind of um the homeless is is the problem is out of control yes and no yes it is but it's also there's a reason why a lot of people end up there the locals are telling me this that they get people get really well looked after there so oh really and so sort of some of these are kind of working out how they and this is only anecdotal so i don't know this for a fact but this is what the locals are telling me they're trying to work out how they can be compassionate with people who have substance abuse issues because you just throw them in jail you criminalize it you just kick it that you kick you know you're kicking this the can down the street so a lot of people go there because a they know they won't die in the winter and b they know it's a pretty safe place to be so when people say to me oh is it safe there like it's it felt completely safe um it just felt quite sad seeing a lot of like casualties on a daily basis and the offensive problem is just terrible um but the sound but this is still a beautiful city and i really love it love san francisco um so yeah i think learning about

43:47Dermot O'Leary: myself traveling on my own by train around the states fab so chapter four your all-time favorite

43:54Hannah O'Leary: destination where where's your favorite today pulia in italy 100 oh i love pulia in italy specifically salento in italy has my heart like we found a little old olive grove there 15 years ago which we bought and we had friends of friends down there we went to go and visit and saw this place and immediately i fell in love with it and it's it's one of the loves of my life and i've got friends down there some are from britain and some are italian and um it's this incredible country where everything can happen and nothing can happen exactly at the same time and and it's so far south so we're in the tip of the stiletto uh so you know if you need you need some documentation documentation done it has to be done by you know you've got to go meet the lawyer and then you've got to go meet the accountant and then it has to be done in triplicate blah blah blah and it's just it's impossible and then you can say i just want a massive fish and you know someone's going my mate palo will go yeah i can get you massive fish yeah no problem at all and then before you know it you know it's like everything can happen and nothing can happen but for me it's that lovely it's a love for life that that salantinos have and it's a i mean the food and the the climate and the people but you know i am never happier than when i'm driving around in a dusty espadrille and you know a t-shirt or no top on and i'm just swimming in the sea picking up stuff for dinner and coming home and it's and you know i've had the best meals of my life are on plastic plates on the side of a beach down there just shoveling frittemiso in my mouth and and drinking a local beer you know that's just my happy place oh sounds dreamy what would be

45:37Dermot O'Leary: your perfect day how would you spend your perfect day with your family down there oh

45:43Hannah O'Leary: I guess good question I'd get up maybe a quick run something like that um we've got a cat called marley who's not our cat but just like is the cat um feed marley go and get some local pastries because there's the cafes down there are just like next level um spend the day chilling we're not massive lunch people because i always think like you could be doing something else when you have a lovely breakfast and you're going to have some dinner and then go to one of the local bays for um the afternoon and then and then you get a quick uh and then a quick dinner like in a in a in a kind of lovely little beachside uh cafe uh uh trattoria down there and then yeah and then

46:28Dermot O'Leary: mooch on home oh that sounds so a lot of swimming in the sea yeah did you swim in the sea a lot in

46:35Hannah O'Leary: ireland as well growing up oh yeah it's funny someone said to you about that he's just a swim um you know while swimming or as we call it swimming yeah people in ireland are pretty

46:47Dermot O'Leary: intrepid with their well i guess seawater swimming open water i was shooting i was shooting a series

46:54Hannah O'Leary: a few years ago about erna shackleton we ended up going down to cork and we were there and we did this thing on the cliff top beautiful kind of drone shot in cork and there were these girls who were i got chatting to like i think they were nurses or something and they were they were just going off for a swim and we went up we were up there for like 45 minutes it was a lovely day but it was it's still the atlantic sea like and we came down and they were still in the sea i was like what are you built from

47:24Dermot O'Leary: the tough tough ladies in the island aren't they they really are i feel like most people i know who are irish like to swim in the sea most days it's an amazing part of their kind of daily ritual

47:36Hannah O'Leary: Yeah, and also there's a big sauna culture that's cropped up now as well over there.

47:42Dermot O'Leary: Oh, really?

47:43Hannah O'Leary: Yeah, my mum and dad has a lot of lovely saunas and stuff that you can go to.

47:47Dermot O'Leary: Oh, how nice. Well, Chapter 5, Dermot, is your hidden gem. So that's a place that you love that maybe isn't as well known for my listeners.

47:57Hannah O'Leary: Well, I'm sure your listeners know Oslo, but some of the little towns that are dotted around Oslo, or Oslo is a destination. and yes it's expensive but a weekend in oslo is such a fun brilliant i mean i love a european city that's not too uh big because obviously london is huge um and quite unmanageable and that's kind of you know i love london to pieces but some of the frustrating things about london are one of the things that frustrates me about london is that think things can come to london they can be here whether it's a theatre show or whatever happen and leave without me even knowing they were here and it just drives me up the wall which is why I love the size of a continental capital and Oslo for me, the great thing about Oslo is you've got the fjords so you can swim in the sea down there the seafood's incredible, the restaurants are brilliant but you're out of the city so quickly so in the winter we ski in the Oslo Winter Park which is to all intents and purposes is like getting on the Victoria line and getting to the last stop and getting off and there just being a wilderness and a ski, like basically like ski mountains there.

49:10Hannah O'Leary: So I would say Oslo.

49:11Dermot O'Leary: I love that. So going a little deeper into the kind of favourite spots, if you go there quite regularly, do you have a few favourite places that you'd recommend in the city?

49:23Hannah O'Leary: Yes, there is. There's an island called Big Day, which isn't necessarily, it's not an island it's more of a peninsula that a lot of people have there a lot of people live there a lot of people holiday there and it's just it's just it's almost like um yes like a small peninsula and you can airbnb there and some great little restaurants and and um and you can get into town in 10 minutes so i that big day for me is that is is where i'm really we airbnb last time

49:49Dermot O'Leary: we were there and just loved it oh fabulous okay that's i want to add to my list i've i'm desperate to see the rest of Norway like going up further north obviously doing the iconic fjords have you

50:01Hannah O'Leary: done done like a kind of cruise ever yeah what we did the great thing about Norway is the Hurtigluten is they do a great job marketing it around the world and it's kind of cruise-esque but it's also a working boat um so it's still taking post and people and uh things from the from the north to the south so we flew to the north to shirkiness and then started which is pretty much on the russian border which at the time was like yeah great uh not so much now and then we we went all the way down to ausland i think we got off and that's five or six days and i would recommend going from north to south and yeah it's incredible and it's just you see the lufferton islands and it's just it is the best it's the only way to see norway really because they haven't got any roads and rail up there.

50:50Hannah O'Leary: So yeah, and then maybe get off at Bergen and then take the Bergen train from Bergen to Oslo, which is an epic train journey. And I think you could do it overnight as well. I'm not sure. Every kind of landscape, but you're hitting the mountains going into the sort of, then it kind of shallows out as you get down to Oslo. But yeah, but on the head to Goodwin, you'll see the fjords.

51:10Dermot O'Leary: Perfect. That sounds like the best trip. Okay, that's one on the bucket list. So our penultimate chapter, Dermot, is your worst travel experience or the place that you'd never go back to, you chapter six?

51:21Hannah O'Leary: Well, I wouldn't say I'd never go back there because actually I loved it. But when I was interrailing, I had food poisoning in, is it either Budapest or Prague? It's Prague. And I love Prague, but it turns out I have to love Prague because I spent a lot of time there. And when you're interrailing, sometimes you can get like, love a little room to the hostel, and sometimes you're in a gymnasium and it was one of those nights i was in a gymnasium i woke up and it just absolutely you know when you know and i ran to the toilet what i thought was a toilet opened it it was just this i was running over people like it was just a big gym i was running over kicking people in the head and stuff but i was like i'm so sorry so sorry and i got to what i thought was the toilet it was a broom cupboard and i was like oh god this is and then And then now frantically trying to find a room.

52:14Hannah O'Leary: Found the toilet. Didn't leave the toilet. And then had to cross Prague in about the next day, just dying. And then we found, me and my mate Glenn found this hostel. And it was like, well, we had rooms. It was just manna from heaven. And I remember just convalescing in Prague. But it was probably the worst night of my life.

52:33Dermot O'Leary: Have you gone back to Prague to rewrite those? No, and I really love Prague.

52:37Hannah O'Leary: So it's not, I wouldn't say don't go back there. It was just a bad, bad night.

52:40Dermot O'Leary: God, what a thing to go through. Well, we are on to the final chapter now, David. That is chapter seven. The destination that's at the top of your travel bucket list. Where would you love to go that you've not yet been?

52:52Hannah O'Leary: I've probably got a couple.

52:54Dermot O'Leary: Go for it.

52:54Hannah O'Leary: But Japan, I think, tops it. Japan, South Korea. Because I just have another opportunity and I would love to spend more time. I'd love to see. I'd love to spend more time in South America and Central America. but I think I think like a few of my friends have been to like spent time in Japan they just say it's just so it's modern but at the same time it's so insular and it's so not secretive but but um traditional and has its own way and has its own its confidence about its way uh it it feels

53:29Dermot O'Leary: like nowhere else in the world really and they say Korea feels this is just anecdotal so it's just

53:35Hannah O'Leary: I mean, you know, it's only people's opinions, but they say Korea feels a bit more probably outlooking. And I'd love to see both of them, South Korea and Japan, yeah.

53:45Dermot O'Leary: I feel like Dermot's Taste of Japan is coming soon. Now we're talking.

53:49Hannah O'Leary: Now we're talking. And also, I'd really love to spend a bit more time in America on New England. That sort of, New England up to Maine would be a proper road trip for me, yeah.

53:59Dermot O'Leary: Yeah. Well, I hope that you get there sometime very soon. thank you so much Dermot O 'Leary those were your travel diaries what an honour and a pleasure

54:09Hannah O'Leary: thank you thanks Holly

54:16Dermot O'Leary: oh well a huge thank you to Dermot for joining me on the podcast Dermot O 'Leary's Taste of Ireland kicks off on Saturday the 2nd of May on ITV1 and ITVX in partnership with Tourism Ireland that was a really special one I think I don't know if it's because I grew up watching The X Factor or what, but his voice, Dermot's voice, is just such an iconic voice as part of our kind of popular culture, I feel. And listening back to it, working on this episode, I just felt it was a bit of a pinch myself moment. We've had so many amazing voices on the podcast, but that was right up there. So I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

54:56Dermot O'Leary: I'll, of course, be back next week with a brand new guest. So don't forget to hit follow or subscribe on your podcast app so that you don't miss an episode. To find out who's joining me next week, come and follow me on Instagram. I'm at Holly Rubenstein. You'll also find me on TikTok at Holly Rubenstein as well. In the meantime, have a fabulous week and safe travels.

55:58Dermot O'Leary: We'll see you next time. the best deal. Save big today at Mattress Warehouse. We're more than a mattress store. We're Mattress Warehouse.