I have never been more grateful for a sat nav's robotic patience than I was driving into Martinsicuro last July. There I was, convinced I was a seasoned European road tripper, cruising through Abruzzo with the windows down and that smug holiday swagger you get when you have remembered to pack the travel adaptor. Then the sat nav announced we had arrived at our destination, and I found myself staring at a petrol station forecourt with a man in overalls filling up his Fiat and looking at me with the kind of pity usually reserved for tourists who try to order a cappuccino after eleven.

Turns out I had punched in the postcode with the confidence of someone who definitely should have double-checked it. My partner, who had been suspiciously quiet for the previous twenty minutes, finally spoke. "You put a space in the wrong place, didn't you?" I had. I absolutely had. There is a special humiliation in being outsmarted by your own thumbs.

Twenty minutes of increasingly narrow coastal roads later, we actually found the place. And I will be honest, my first impression was mostly relief that I had not driven us into the Adriatic. But then I actually looked around. The property sat there in that lovely, unhurried way Italian places do, all pale walls and terracotta roof tiles that looked like they had been baking in the sun since about 1973. The garden needed a drink, which made me feel immediately at home. I have never trusted a garden that looks too maintained. It suggests either robots or people with far more organised lives than mine.

The key was where the owner said it would be, which felt like a small miracle given my track record that afternoon. The door opened with that satisfying scrape of wood on tile that tells you nobody has rushed to sand anything down for Instagram. Inside smelled of clean linen and something faintly lemony, and the kitchen had the kind of tiles that make you want to immediately cook something involving tomatoes and far too much garlic.

I made the mistake of opening the patio doors before I had properly put my bag down, which meant I stood there like a lemon with my rucksack half on, staring at the outdoor space. There was a covered terrace with a table that looked like it had hosted approximately four thousand previous dinners, and beyond it a glimpse of garden furniture that had clearly seen some weather. I loved it instantly. You cannot fake that kind of comfortable shabbiness. It takes years of actual living.

My partner went to investigate the bedrooms while I attempted to make coffee with a moka pot I had not used since a misguided trip to Rome in 2019. I got it wrong twice. The first time I forgot to put water in, which I only discovered when I wondered why it was making a noise like a dying wasp. The second time I overfilled it and spent ten minutes mopping up what I can only describe as a coffee crime scene. By the time I got it right, the sun was doing that golden thing it does in Abruzzo around six o'clock, and I sat on that terrace with my hard-won espresso feeling like I had earned every bitter sip.

The beach was a stroll away, apparently, though I decided that could wait for morning when I was less likely to get lost again. For now I just watched the light change and listened to someone nearby having what sounded like a very enthusiastic phone conversation in Italian. I understood none of it but nodded along anyway, as if that helped.

That first evening I realised something I probably should have known before. I am not very good at arriving anywhere gracefully. I make mistakes, I overpack the moka pot, I trust my own typing skills far too readily. But there is something about a place like Martinsicuro that lets you off the hook a bit. It does not demand perfection. It just asks you to show up, eventually find the right address, and maybe make a decent coffee on your third attempt. By the time we walked to the local shop for bread and some truly enormous tomatoes, I had already decided the sat nav mishap was worth it. You cannot buy a good story with perfect directions, and anyway, the petrol station man and I had shared something. I think it was mutual recognition of human fallibility, or possibly just that I was blocking the pumps.