I should have known the Peloponnese would have the last laugh when I confidently told the hire car man I needed "something sturdy for mountain roads." Three hours later, that sturdy little Fiat was wheezing up a corkscrew lane near Skiadas, my phone signal had vanished somewhere outside Tripoli, and I had just spent twenty minutes following a goat who I genuinely believed might be leading me to civilisation. He was not. He was leading me to more goats.

This was late October, that strange in-between season when Greece stops being a summer poster and becomes something far more interesting. The olive harvest was just beginning, and the hills around Tritaia looked like someone had dusted them with silver-green glitter. Every few minutes I'd spot a local with a ladder and a tarpaulin, methodically working through ancient trees while I sat there, slightly lost, eating emergency biscuits and accepting my new life among the goats.

When I finally found the property - perched on a hillside with views that made my navigational shame worthwhile - the first thing that struck me was how the autumn light hit it. In July this place would be brutal, all white walls and glare. But in late October, the low afternoon sun turned everything honey-coloured and forgiving. The pool, too cold for swimming now, sat there like a reflective mirror for the sky, and I found myself strangely glad I couldn't use it. It felt more honest somehow, more connected to the actual rhythm of the place.

The owner had left a small basket of fresh pomegranates and some late-season figs, still warm from the tree. I stood on the terrace in a jumper I'd optimistically packed "just in case," watching the light drain from the valley below. In summer I'd have been rushing to change into swimwear, to maximise every sun-drenched hour. Now I was content to watch the shadows lengthen, to notice how the temperature dropped sharply after six, how the evening brought woodsmoke from somewhere down the hill.

That first night I made the rookie error of eating dinner outside without a jacket. The mountain air, so generous during the day, turned brisk and businesslike. I shuffled indoors with my wine glass, feeling faintly ridiculous, and discovered the particular pleasure of a cool evening in a stone house where the walls still held the day's warmth. I slept with windows open, hearing nothing but owls and the occasional distant dog, and woke to a morning so crisp it felt almost Alpine.

The seasonal timing shaped everything. The tavernas in nearby villages were still open but unhurried, the proprietors pleased to see you rather than professionally tolerant. I walked trails that would be furnace-hot in August, finding abandoned threshing floors and tiny chapels where autumn leaves had already begun to gather. One afternoon I helped an old man load firewood onto his truck - he spoke no English, I spoke barely any Greek, but the season provided the vocabulary. We understood preparation, storage, the gathering-in before winter.

By my fourth day I'd developed a routine of early walks, long lunches, and evenings watching the light change across the mountains. The pool stayed unused, becoming instead a kind of water feature for the terrace, occasionally rippled by wind. I didn't mind. There was something quietly radical about visiting Greece and not swimming, about accepting what the place offered rather than demanding the standard experience.

On my last morning I packed the car in mist so thick I could barely see the olive trees. The goats, my former navigators, watched from a wall with what I chose to interpret as respect. I drove down through clouds that gradually cleared, emerging into sunshine near the coast, already feeling nostalgic for the particular character of that autumn hillside. Greece in October, I decided, was like meeting someone famous when the crowds have gone - still beautiful, more generous, and surprisingly good company if you're prepared to bring a jumper and a sense of humour.