The Secret Italian Town You MUST Visit | Niamh Algar

0:00So I like learned how to sail at the age of eight and after four years of like doing like intense like sailing courses I qualified to become a sailing instructor and I kind of look at the architecture now in modern society of going, thinking, you know, what is going to, what's going to be here in hundreds of years to come. Like I'll always bring a pair of trainers and a swimsuit wherever I go for some reason. It's always like built into the back of my head. And the beaches, the white sand beaches, the water is warm because it's the Mediterranean. I would go back there in a heartbeat.

0:36Welcome to Travel Secrets with me, Tanya Rose, the podcast sharing wisdom for fellow travelers. Each week, I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the holidays and adventures that surround them.

0:57Today, my guest is the brilliant Irish actress, Niamh Algarh. Famed for so many amazing roles, calm with horses, virtues, playing nice with the divine James Norton, who I had a few months ago on the podcast. And I have binge watched the most fantastic thing that you're in now, The Iris Affair. It is so exciting. I was nearly sick in the last one. I'm not saying anything in case it's a spoiler, but I can't wait for the next four to be out. So when are they coming? So I'm so sorry that I nearly made you sick, but um listen that just goes to show a very tense show it's coming out so we they released the first four and then on thursday you'll it'll be weekly so it kind of appealed to both audiences that like to binge but also to like to wait weekly so i think they it's the kind of the same template that they did with day of the jackal so skyrid series they yeah they're kind of like falling into that same.

1:59Well, it's amazing. And Tom Holland is amazing. You're amazing. It's absolutely fantastic. Loved it. Thank you. Can't wait to see the next bit. On the edge of my seat, I'm sure the next four are going to be. It doesn't let up. I'm sorry to tell you that. Oh, dear. Well, you have traveled the world and I am so pleased to meet you and I can't wait to hear your travel secrets. So before we get into them, perhaps you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and how has travel impacted the person that you've become? Yeah, I think because I've always like thinking about this and I think it's always like not boring to think that work has made me travel but it has even from a really young age I like it was sailing so I like learned how to sail at the age of eight and after four years of like doing like intense like sailing courses I qualified to become a sailing instructor did you yeah and then a senior sailing instructor and with that came travel because every summer I'd get a job and like for like you know throughout my teens so from like 14 through to like when I was like 19 I like traveled around Ireland and working in different sailing clubs and that basically opened me up to travel and then when I was within that year like within that that time being a teenager I went on this like sailing vessel which was called the Asgard, Asgard 2 which was this two-masted brigantine ship and that sailed all around Europe and I did that for like three months and so my I suppose my enthusiasm and fascination with travel came both hand in hand with sailing but also at work.

3:46Amazing and did you travel with your parents as well when you were younger? We did like we were big families so it It was always like I would hear stories about them going to Disney World. Just because I think like to bring five children to Florida. Yeah. And me and my younger sister was like left on a farm in the Midlands. But we were always like it wasn't. I think because I was like working every summer and I wanted to work. Like I love sailing that. That each summer I would just find myself in like different. like on Kerry or Cork or Kilke, you know, for three months of the year. Amazing. Are you still keen sailor?

4:31I actually did it when we were, so on this job in the Irish affair, we did a lot of, we did like, was it four weeks, three weeks in Sardinia? And then on the weekend there, I took a small sailing yacht out and we went just like literally on a day trip. But I don't get the time. I'd love to. Like my friend, close friend of mine who we grew up together, she now lives in London and we keep telling ourselves we need to just find a boat, steal a boat. No. Have some time between it, acting. Yeah, have some time. But I've been lucky that I've been working and that's been taking me to really fun and exciting places.

5:16Well, you've been doing so many wonderful things and you won the Rising Star BAFTA in 2019. Was it Rising Star or? So it was the Breakthrough. Breakthrough. Breakthrough Talent Award. Yeah, that was, I don't know, it was like a feeling that you're like, oh, I must be doing something right. Did you know you always wanted to be an actress? Yeah, I think I probably wanted to be a sailor just for the excitement of adventure. but ultimately I think on that trip when I was on the Asgard because it was like three months I was away from my family we didn't have a phone like you didn't you couldn't have a phone and you were like always like out at sea where there was no signal I think within that period being alone and almost not reinventing yourself but trying to figure out what it is that you wanted to do once you left school that was a uh isolated time to to imagine and feel like that there was kind of endless possibilities I think away from a schooling structure where those ideas of trying to go into performing arts were seen as I don't know impossible in some regard yeah thank you for watching Travel Secrets.

6:36I hope you're enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying doing it. Please take a second and subscribe now. Well, let's get into your travel secrets. What is the number one destination you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime? I know someone's already said this on your podcast, but I feel like Rome really is. We shot there for six months with the Irish Affair and I'd only been there once before on like a really brief weekend. And I'd said to myself, I really need to come back here and explore the city more. And then I was there for six months. How fabulous. Yeah. And it looked gorgeous. It really is like the character really, like Italy is a character within the show, for sure.

7:20And I think when you're the architecture and these kind of ancient. inventions like the aqueduct that over thousands of years have stood the testament of time and I kind of look at the architecture now in modern society of going thinking you know what is gonna what's gonna be here in in hundreds and years to come is are we gonna is it you kind of it kind of blows your mind and I think Neil Cross his his writing with the iris was the idea of this current technology that this quantum computer and how this is that that is an advanced technology but yet we're stood next to an aqueduct which at the time was an advanced technology and I think to have that in you know parallel juxtaposition yeah juxtaposition it's it's kind of amazing and you can't like every street there is fascinating there's like a fountain or uh you know the teeth sorry i can't even say the word cathedrals but yeah they they there's the history of art it's yeah it's incredible it's like walking around a museum just walking outside isn't it exactly yeah it's so beautiful I had the most wonderful time when I first went to Rome because Roman Holiday is one of my favorite films with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn so I said I want to do what they did so I rented a Vespa with a guy in front of me who was very handsome and just literally went to everywhere that they went to the Trevi Fountain to the place that you put your hand in I had the best day it was just so wonderful we actually had our base camp at that um what was it that what is it it's like a big thing of the verita the verita yeah and you put your hand in basically if you've sinned or if you lied it'll take your hand yeah and our unit base was there so my trailer I opened the door and I was like what's that why are all the doors like queuing up to to put their hand in this and that's so funny that's really hilarious what's your most unexpected travel experience it was possibly Cape Town so I was out there I filmed this series called Raise My Wolves and season one we shot out there but season two why I think it's unexpected is because lockdown hit a second time out there and it was a red zone country so we were heading out knowing that we couldn't leave for at least six months and no one could come in to visit us so but it was brilliant because it reminded me of being on that boat of being forced into really embracing and and gelling with people around you because you become it's almost like a family unit and us as a cast really gelled um like we were all in these apartment complexes but we were linked by the car park so there was water shedding that would happen at about 7pm and all the lights would go off.

10:26And so we'd pick each apartment each evening. We would choose like, right, we'll cook tonight. And we'd like, it would be all in candlelight. And that was just, I think that always just kind of stands out as this really, I don't know, beautiful memory of like it being simple. But also we got to go because of the lockdown and because no tourists were allowed in, we went and we did a um safari so we went down to muscle bay which was kind of further along the coast it was about five hours from where we were and we we because the production basically had to shut down so for 10 days we went and did a safari the whole cost about eight of us wonderful it was incredible did you see the big five we saw the big five and like i've always like i'll always bring a pair of trainers and a swimsuit wherever I go for some reason it's always like built into the back of my head that was like I don't know you never know you might jump in the sea there or you might go for a run and one morning me and my friend Jen we decided we were going to go for a run and we completely forgotten where we were and we went running out the house of this reserve that we were in and we were just like running along and we were like that's crazy that kind of looks like a rhino and when we had gotten there the night before there was no animals around so in our head we felt safe like just a few lions just a few lions but yeah we were running and we saw like a rhino and we were like okay time to run the other direction the other direction yeah they must have thought you were crazy yeah i think i think they did they were probably like in shock as to why these two idiots out running in the middle of the fields what was that about the raised by wolves yeah i haven't seen that and it was ridley scott's uh tv series that he had directed and produced um and it was set it was kind of futuristic like everything like ridley does and specializes in where it's the this uh androids that are sent to this planet that is habitable and they're sent there to look after children to kind of repopulate this new planet because civilization has has depleted within earth and it's the idea of nature and nurture and the idea that can children still bond with, I suppose, like a technology that has been programmed to act like a human and can these androids then actually start mimicking human capabilities and nurturing and motherhood.

12:56So the idea of there's these two kind of main characters called mother and father, and it's really interesting of how the kind of psychology of that whole concept of nurture in nature. yeah. Wow. I did not play an android I played a soldier that kind of. A human. The human yeah the human human element to it. And you loved South Africa did you? I love South Africa yeah. You know it's you can't it's got this I don't know I think it's got to do with the amount of nature that is there that it feels it's got an amazing aura and I don't know if it's got to do with material or soil or and but you do feel like there is there's something very spiritual and and grounding in that area I love South Africa when I went there to see a hotel actually I came back and I said to my husband I think we should buy a house there and he went you went to sign a new contract not buy a house and I said but the people are so nice and the wine is so fabulous and the weather is so amazing yeah no it's got everything the foods the wine people yeah you were in cape town were you we were predominantly in cape town yeah yeah very good what is your most overrated or underrated and this is really hard because people don't like saying an overrated so you can say underrated do you know what i might say overrated i only think because I went back recently.

14:29So to promote the Iris Affair, we started in Rome with the cast and crew and I brought my friend from home and she was like, we have to go see the Trevi Fountain. And the last time I was there, it was in the peak of summer. And I think it's just it's so overpopulated with tourists. And now they've created like this like queue system that. Do you have to? Yeah. So there's the whole queue system. But you get there and you can barely see the fountain. And then you have to queue for about two or three hours while you're kind of still looking at the fountain just to get a bit closer so you can throw the lucky coin in.

15:09And you're always so conscious about pickpockets in that area. So there's a party of you that is trying to take in what you're looking at in this incredible structure and this piece of art. But the other side of you is just constantly keeping your hand on your phone. um I didn't know they did that anymore I mean when I went on my motorbike tour it was totally it was open open no and this throw your coin in yeah and this is only like recently so this is like September October where it's the it's like the off season so I think you know obviously places become destroyed by tourists so let's talk about food and drink it's so important in travel it's so much part of travel what do you like eating where do you like eating what's your favorite cocktail where's your favorite restaurant what's been your favorite meal let's just talk about food and drink and travel i love food and drink it's the best thing about traveling obviously because of work you always ask the crew where do they where you to specify questions like where would you eat a sandwich after work where would you it has to be more kind of specified as opposed to where would you go to eat um or where would you get a coffee first thing in the morning before work like the coffee initially is on a different level you know you go in it's funny because there's so many stunts and there was so much like physical requirement required for the role um which meant that I could just eat as much like pastries and pasta as I want is that the idea of being fueled up continuously on carbs because each day felt like a marathon so I could wake up in the morning and have like a one of those donuts like the the glazed donuts they have delicious it's amazing it's like with a coffee with a coffee where you dip it in and I'd never done that before I always thought like you eat them separately it's just those little little things that you feel like you're becoming more Italian um but the there was a place in Florence we'd shot this scene myself and Tom and it's at the very kind of start of the series where Iris and Cameron meet for the first time and it was a scene that actually I'd sent to Neil when I got sent the script to kind of pitch myself to him to go, I think I could play this.

17:25And weirdly, after only in the Q &A did I find out that once I sent that in, he never saw anyone else for the role. Really? Yeah, which was really special. I'm hugely grateful. But we shot that scene and it was in Florence in the kind of the main square and around the corner. there's this I'm like I think I'm just like a the simplicity of Italian food the way in which they don't mix so many ingredients it's just like very well done simplistic ingredients and there's a sandwich place that was we'd shot the scene we wrapped early everyone kind of went back to the hotel and I decided to walk around Florence and I've walked into this little little cafe called jalapenos and there's I think Florence is known for those kind of flatbread sandwiches and there's one really famous place I can't remember the name of it but it kind of comes up as like the destination hotspot for tourists to go whereas this is the kind of a lesser known place um and it was a simplistic sandwich of just the burrata cheese ham and pesto and I think it was just taking in the job that I was on with an actor that I admired immensely in a stunning location and yeah I think that for me I think of relevance of recent relevant yeah did you have to do much training for that role physical training what did you do a lot um like I've always had like a good baseline of of kind of physical strength from like a young age um it was always kind of like sport was always hugely encouraged so it's something that I I do quite regularly of going to the gym and but I do it in a feels meditative it's like some therapy in my in my own way of being able to kind of switch off by you know physically engaging in something that is challenging so kind of leading up to it I was doing a lot of strength and conditioning and then we went out there three weeks in advance of shooting I worked with the stunt team to I think for them it was basically to assess whether or not these stunts I myself were going to be capable of doing it or did you have to have a stunt person yeah yeah but I still had it I said Alexa was my stunt double and she was incredible so it was more seeing her block out the stunt whatever it might have been of like running through a street and then jumping up into a window and then jumping down and getting onto a Vespa and just seeing you know a professional do it and block it out in a almost like a dance um and learning from her physicality being able to make it look good look cool I think And that's the brilliant thing about working with a stunt team is that they're there to make you look better.

20:24But it was brilliant because I got to drive a Ferrari for about two episodes of it. And so there was Ferrari stunt training. That's very useful. Very useful. Did you have to learn kickboxing and things like that? Because you're doing a lot of that. Yeah. there like I I've I've did boxing training for about I'd say it's about 15 years now I just started it yeah um I think the training element of it is it's intense and it's short and I just I love it I don't know what you get these brilliant endorphins like I always try to go running and try and find that runner's high and I never found it I was always like in awe of people or felt like it was a lie I'm like does it exist what is this runner's high because I've never experienced it um but with boxing I think yeah there's it's you're mentally so engaged in what you're doing um and so there was a lot of fight sequences but obviously there's a difference between like you know pulling back on a punch than following through and that's the those are the kind of things you have to learn and make it look real and yeah not like keep your distance about you know a foot away from the person's face so you're never going to make contact and so it's those it's the it's the kind of the camera cheats that you have to learn well because you did all that wonderful exercise you could eat everything you wanted in italy how marvelous yeah as much pasta as much cacio e pepe that cacio e pepe yeah that's so delicious so delicious yeah they had simple ingredients like three ingredients did you find a restaurant that you went back to time and time again or not i would try and go to to continuously keep moving around and exploring I think that was the there's there's a I didn't want to get that kind of Stockholm syndrome of just finding one place and going there but I would force myself I think I get like such social anxiety like eating alone in restaurants I don't know I don't know what it is and then my friend told me just bring a book and then at least it looks like you're there even if you're not under the book yeah so what did you say to Tom that made him then not look at anyone else what did you send in O 'Neill, O 'Neill sorry.

22:37I don't know I just I did that scene that Cameron and I were seeing and I suppose it was something that he was trying to find to continue writing for the character to to figure out the the logic of what you know why she is the way she is and what her kind of what her motive is because you know she does things in this story that you or I wouldn't be capable of and there's a kind of her emotional intelligence was really interesting to kind of mark out because it's what I discovered with Neil after we had that first meeting was that it felt like a coming of age story for someone that you know they're they're the people around them are forcing them to care more about themselves whereas she has this kind of lack of fear um which was fascinating she doesn't fear death in the same way that we would because she thinks in such a logical way and I don't know he said it was just that he saw me in that scene and that was it.

23:59Well he made the right choice. Thank you. Sardinia looked amazing in the Iris Affair as well did you enjoy Sardinia? Absolutely that's where we started shooting so we started in Cáddery and then we worked our way up north to Alguero and the beaches the white sand beaches the water is warm because it's the Mediterranean yeah I would go back there in a heartbeat I go every year in May to Cagliari to a place called Forte Village which is a huge resort but it's amazing for children so my husband's got six grandchildren and then he has three grown-up children we have a so we go a multi-generational thing and the beach is just incredible and they're stunning yeah yeah And in May, it's wonderful weather.

24:46The food is amazing. Seafood. Yeah. Seafood is incredible. The gelato. It's the ice cream, the beer. Yeah. Delicious. Absolutely delicious. What is your top travel tip? My top travel tip? Travel light. I've always overpack every time heading off. And I end up wearing about three outfits that I'll keep in circulation. or when you get there you realize actually I don't I don't have enough cotton I need like breathing material and you start to like look at the locals around you and realize I should be probably wearing that but I always travel with a like a swimsuit to anywhere like in Ireland specifically um whenever I go back I'll know that I'll have to bring my swimsuit because my sister will text me and be like we're gonna go for a swim we're gonna go like jump in the sea yeah but it's amazing because now since I've since I've gone back um I went I went and shot a film during the summer and the all around like in these kind of bathing spots in in Ireland now there's the saunas that have all been popped up out of nowhere oh yeah so the so the days of you know jumping in the sea and then having to like have hypothermia have hypothermia and have the car heater blasting until you start to regain feeling back in your hands before you can drive is now you know it's now changed you have these like very booty uh saunas that have all popped up but it's it's interesting because i there's especially around the midlands they've all these saunas have all popped up and i was speaking to one of the guys uh there and they said that actually in Ireland it was Choc Aulis which means like sweat house and they discovered that there's actually thousands of medieval ruins of all these sweat houses that were yes it was actually very much ingrained within the Irish culture you know tens of thousands of years ago the understanding of like homeopathic healing through heat and steam so they would take like Like these were like just very simple dwellings that was just built of stone, but they would heat up the rocks.

27:07And they're only like designed for one or two people. And the stones were brought in and cold water was thrown on them. But that was very much part of the Irish culture. The original sauna. The original sauna, yeah. How amazing. And so they've rebuilt things like that or have they built saunas? They've just built saunas, yeah. But yeah, but to know that that was actually very much, it's not just like a Swedish or... No, no, no. Is it ingrained in the Irish culture? How amazing. Yeah, so it was actually part of like a daily life, daily rituals. But it must be freezing in the water in Ireland. It is.

27:41It's Atlantic. It's cold. But you feel amazing after it. I always, like there's that, like before filming, like we shot in Sitges. And that, you know, that's cold. That's the Atlantic. I shot like a Disney series there. and um we were filming for about two months in Barcelona in Sitges and every morning I forced myself to get up and get into the sea and I always it's just like it's that instant way of like waking up and feeling like you've already kind of gotten something difficult out of the way first and then you I don't know it's like on set of fact very invigorating everyone's now doing this cold water swimming and James Norton actually said it's a family thing with them they've done it all their lives wherever they go yeah they have to have a cold water swim yeah we we always used to do because we like grew up beside a lake so we'd always go running and then jump into the lake afterwards to like cool down but we didn't know at the time it had benefit I had to jump into the North Sea in Scotland every day at school for five years and that was enough for me that turned you off I really did I know when I go to a hairdresser now and they say would you like a cauldron so I no thank you I've done that I've done that enough now no thank you no thank you where are you from in Ireland is it the Midlands yeah it's like if you were to look at the map yeah and just put your finger bang in the middle it's like bang in the middle it's a town called Mullingar and it's about 60 kilometres inland from Dublin I think is the best way I can describe it do you still go back I do yeah I do because like most of my family are there still so I get back as much as I can lovely so beautiful it's stunning like yeah i think there's very underrated areas of ireland because people always when you say to people like have you visited ireland they'll say yes dublin but you kind of have to you know there's other places yeah west coast i mean there's so many different places aren't there yeah and you know it i think just rent a car and it's it's a very accessible uh country is that where you holiday i know i i i think i always holiday where if i'm working because i've been working in places and then i'll add on a holiday at the end yeah because you never really get to explore when you're working um and like for example we just we've been on the press tour with this and we were in munich and i never got to go outside of the hotel so that's weird I think it's weird to say you've flown all the way to Munich but all you've spent time yeah I've never been I would I can tell you that the the airport is fantastic um so yeah that you feel like you need to kind of add on like a week to any to any job just to feel like you've spent time in those places yeah I mean a lot of people say you know they've filmed in South Africa as you say but they've never seen it yeah so that does seem a shame doesn't it when you go yeah and i think that that having that lockdown there actually forced us to yeah to do that to go and have adventures and and yeah kind of really ingrain ourselves in the culture there what's your most poignant travel experience or memory i think it was possibly on the asgard to the ship um we would do night watch so every kind of second day you rotate so either you know you'd And we all had jobs on the boat.

31:11So that was brilliant. So you kind of, it was a training vessel. And the, it was a really beautiful still night, like enough for the sails. So we would, you know, we would end up, I think we were traveling from, so we started in Saint-Malo in France. Then we went to Lisbon and then Cadiz in Spain and then finished in Antwerp. um and on one of the parts of the leg of that journey you know it was like jet black night the sails were all up and we were traveling i think it was to lisbon and that phosphorescence that you get from the plankton the whole the whole area around the boat when it hit against the waves it all lit up oh that's lovely it was insane and there was dolphins swimming along the side of the boat and honestly it's like the closest kind of experience you feel like you're having to I'm feeling like you're you're on mushrooms but you're not you know I was I was a kid so that wasn't happening but you understand where the writer you know where writers of Peter Pan get are inspired by where these stories of um magic come from and I think it's it's it's experiences like that where nature itself is presenting itself in a mystical way um and i think that that felt yeah that felt like a a very magical experience how old were you when you did that 13 that's amazing yeah so i think that's that's always stood out i bet it did and when the dolphins jumped and then they landed did all of the light came the light came up it was incredible that's so beautiful yeah and you know this is before like you didn't have phones with cameras and so it's all like in your memory and it's ingrained so that's always taking a picture actually that takes us beautifully on to the next question which is i asked you to bring a photo that sums up travel to you can you show us the photo or tell us about the photograph and what that means to you i do i was actually it's funny because i was there going through all my photos and i was like i have to bring in a photo for 10 you know what i'm like what am i going to pick and it was like I'm gonna take Niamh you're such an idiot you carry a photo with you I've carried a photo with me since um so when I moved to Dublin from Mullingar I live with my grandmother and before I left Dublin to move to London she gave me a photo of my granddad that she had been given by him when they were courting and it's a photo of him and I've always had it it's like it's in this a little pout and it's him out on a hike and she doesn't actually know where exactly it is um it was given given to her by him and she always thought it was like a good luck heirloom to keep me safe and he's been on my granddad has been on every single set so I'll take a photo of that with the clapper board in whatever location it is yeah and there's an album in my phone that's like called granddad on tour oh that's such a wonderful photo that's fantastic and that's them on their wedding day that's them on their wedding day yeah so he's your lucky charm he's my lucky charm yeah keeping me safe yeah that is such a nice thing I've actually got a locket that my father gave me which has got a photograph of my husband and my son and wherever I go in the world I always have that locket and it's just so nice to know they're with me but also that my father's with me too so I know exactly what you mean yeah it's a lovely way to ground yourself it absolutely is before I let you go what's next for you what's coming out what are you working on where are you going next well thankfully they've just they um released the press release yesterday for that film that I shot in Ireland with the lovely Sam Claffin and Sinead Cusack Ruth Bradley um Colin Meaney so it was an Irish film that we shot during the summer and it's based on Anna McParlane's novel The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes and it's just such a beautiful story it's just like a love letter about life and I enjoyed it immensely especially going back to Ireland to film and to spend kind of every weekend sauna hunting Where did you film in Ireland?

35:36We were mostly in Maynooth so it was doubling up for Ireland in the 80s so we kind of had to go outside of Dublin because everything has changed architecturally very different. And what's that called? The Last Days of Rabbit Hays. And when's it coming out? We don't know yet but they just did the press release so that was that was lovely. How wonderful and where are you going next? Where am I going next? I don't know I don't know Tanya I need to take a holiday. I was going to say have you got some time now? I've got some time now so I'm going to plan, sit down and plan and think about where I'm actually going to take, you know, take two weeks or 10 days off.

36:14Well, any advice you need? Please let me know. You know who to ask. It's been so lovely to meet you. A joy and a delight to go around the world with you. And I cannot wait till my next four Thursdays to see how the Iris Affair ends up. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

36:36Thank you.