Ingrid Winterbach is an award-winning novelist

Where did you spend your last holiday?

Vienna, Berlin and Paris.

What was the best thing you did while there?

Visited art museums, especially Berlin's Neues Museum.

Your favourite city abroad?

New York.

What must a first-time visitor see there?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art for its fantastic collection and the great variety of bagels in its restaurant.

What should they not bother with?

The 205th floor of any building. Why look down on a city when you can look at El Greco's Portrait of a Cardinal?

What was your best holiday ever?

Amanzimtoti when I was five years old and made myself wings from banana leaves.

What was your worst holiday ever? What happened?

I was pregnant with my first child and didn't know it. I remember walking around the British Museum with a wet coat, pinching shoes and nausea.

Which is the worst hotel you have stayed in?

The Hotel Dali in Barcelona. The bathroom stank of sulphur, the mattress was springy and the Mafia were having a conference on the top floor.

Who would be your fantasy holiday companion and why?

Someone well read with big money.

Your favourite South African destination and why?

A friend's farm near Colesberg - the landscape is so different from that of the city.

Your favourite restaurant anywhere?

Durban's 1999.

What is the most exotic dish you have ever eaten on holiday?

A persimmon in New Zealand in 2006.

One place you want to see before you die?

I want to go to Colmar in France to see the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald.

One travel destination you would call "never again"?

A camp site in the Netherlands. It was most depressing. The Dutch do cities very well, but we do camping much better here in South Africa.