Your earliest holiday memory? It was in the Baltic Sea with my parents in East Germany on Ruegen, an island close to the Polish border.
It was about 1971. I must have been four years old. I had pulled a pot of boiling custard down on top of me and I had my arm in a bandage all over the holidays. All the other kids were naked playing in the sand. I was there with this bandage building sandcastles.
What was your worst holiday?
Our first sailing holiday. We were supposed to be off Kinsale, sailing to the Channel Islands. We weren't able to go out because the weather was too stormy. We spent a week waiting in Cork city, and every day we thought "we'll go today".
Our skipper was very cautious because we were all beginners. In the end, all we had was one trip out to the gas rigs. On the way there the wind died completely. We sat on the sea with the sails flapping. It was a huge disappointment.
Your best holiday?
I had a great holiday with my wife, Fionnuala, in India in 2003. We went for a seven-week trip, travelling up and down the country. We went down south to Kerala. It's very tropical jungle there. It was great to get to know such a different culture, one that is really different to our European way of life and a very contemporary culture as well. There were brilliant extremes of countryside. People have such different lives, from rural, poor circumstances to Bombay, where we went to a Bollywood party and you have the bling and the glamour. We visited an Ayurvedic doctor in Karnataka in a totally rural place. We were, as whites, big news.
If budget or work were no restriction, what would be your dream holiday?
Oa yacht, sailing around the world.
Your favourite place in Ireland?
The place where we got married, Ballyhogue Church. It's about 10km outside Enniscorthy, in Co Wexford. It's by the River Slaney, and they have the rolling hills and a single church with a graveyard and nothing else around. There are swans on the river, and the sky is always great there.
What holiday reading would you recommend?
Sailing Alone Around the Worldby Joshua Slocum.
Where to next?
I'm going back to Potsdam in east Germany, outside Berlin, and my next holiday is a skiing holiday in Italy and ice-fall climbing, which is a great sport.
• In conversation with Catherine Foley
• Wolfgang Hoffmann is a dancer, choreographer and director of the 2008 Dublin Fringe Festival