I have never been so pleased to see a pothole in my life. After six hours of driving from Lamezia Terme airport, most of it spent winding through the Sila mountains with two children asking if we were there yet approximately every ninety seconds, that crater in the road meant we had finally reached Piano d'Arnice. I may have cheered. My wife may have threatened divorce.

The sat nav had given up on us somewhere near San Giovanni in Fiore, which I took as a sign we were entering proper wilderness. I had insisted on taking the scenic route because I am a man who does not learn from previous mistakes. Last year's detour through a Tuscan olive grove still haunts me. This time we ended up on a track so narrow that a goat blocked us for ten minutes. The goat won the staring contest. It always does.

The property appeared through the chestnut trees like something from a slightly rustic dream. Stone walls, wooden shutters, that particular hush you only get at altitude. I was mentally composing my opening line for the group chat before I had even turned off the engine. Then I opened the boot and discovered I had packed the wrong bag. My wife's carefully organised case of clothes and sensible shoes sat in our hallway in Croydon. What I had brought instead was the bag of old wellies, waterproofs and a tent with two broken poles that I had meant to take to the tip last autumn. I stood there in the mountain air holding a single welly boot while a squirrel judged me from a branch.

The owner, a lovely woman called Rosa who spoke rapid Italian and patient English, showed us round the cottage while I tried to hide my footwear shame. Wooden beams, a fireplace you could stand in, kitchen tiles hand-painted with lemons. My daughter immediately claimed the loft bedroom. My son discovered the garden had actual chickens and nearly expired from joy. I discovered the wood-fired oven and immediately planned pizzas I was absolutely unqualified to make.

That first evening we walked to the village, which took all of twelve minutes and involved saying buongiorno to three separate cats and one man repairing a fence who seemed to consider this sufficient social interaction for the day. We bought bread from a shop that also sold nails and seeds, which is the sort of combination I now believe all shops should aspire to. My wife wore my spare trainers, two sizes too large, and did not complain once, which is how I knew she was either deeply relaxed or plotting something.

Back at the cottage, Rosa had left us local cheese and wine made by her cousin. The children fell asleep before nine, exhausted by fresh air and chicken-related excitement. My wife and I sat on the terrace with that wine, watching the mountains turn purple in the dusk, listening to nothing much at all. I was still wearing one welly boot, having given up on dignity hours ago. It was absolutely perfect.

I used to think holidays needed sightseeing and restaurants and activities you could post about. Turns out what I needed was to get lost in goat traffic, pack entirely the wrong luggage, and sit on a stone terrace in Calabria wondering why I had ever thought otherwise. The mountains do not care about your planning. The chickens certainly do not. And somewhere in that realisation is a lesson I will probably forget by next year, when I will no doubt take another scenic route and make another ridiculous mistake. I rather hope I do.