I have never been so relieved to see a concrete car park in my life. After six hours of driving from Naples airport, my partner, two children, and I finally rolled into Baia Domizia, only to discover that I had been confidently navigating us toward the wrong holiday park for the last forty minutes. The sat nav had given up on me hours ago, and my paper map skills proved about as useful as a chocolate teapot. There was a tense moment somewhere near Sessa Aurunca where I may have suggested we just sleep in the hire car. My partner may have suggested something less printable.

The proper place, when we found it, was a low-rise cluster of pastel-painted apartments tucked between pine trees and neatly trimmed hedges. A woman at reception handed me a key and a photocopied map with a smile that suggested she had seen this exact scene a thousand times before. British family, slightly frazzled, overpacked, grateful for air conditioning. I did not disabuse her of any assumptions.

Our apartment was on the ground floor, which turned out to be a blessing because we had brought approximately seventeen bags for a week-long stay. The children bolted straight through to the terrace, shrieking about the pool they could glimpse between the buildings. I stood in the kitchenette, taking stock of the situation. Compact, clean, everything you need and nothing you do not. A small sofa with slightly too firm cushions. A dining table that wobbled until I folded a beer mat under one leg. It felt immediately like somewhere you could properly settle into, which was fortunate because I had no intention of moving the car again until absolutely necessary.

The mishap of the wrong turn had actually done me a favour, though I would not admit this aloud for several days. It forced a pace upon us that I do not naturally possess. We were too late for the planned supermarket sweep, too tired for ambitious evening plans. Instead we walked ten minutes to the nearest strip of shops, bought warm bread and some local mozzarella that was still dripping whey, and ate a makeshift dinner on that wobbly table while the children argued about who had the better bedroom. The terrace doors stayed open. The pine scent drifted in with the cooling air. Somewhere a neighbour was cooking with garlic in quantities that made my stomach audibly rumble.

I keep catching myself trying to make holidays into projects, lists of experiences to be efficiently ticked off. The wrong turn stripped all that away for an evening, left us with nothing but bread and cheese and tired limbs and the particular quiet of a place where everyone else has already found their rhythm. My daughter fell asleep at the table, her head on my arm. My son discovered that Italian television shows cartoons even if you cannot understand a word. My partner poured wine into plastic cups and raised one to me with a look that said we had survived the first day, which is sometimes achievement enough.

The pool would wait. The beach, ten minutes' walk through the pines, would wait. Even the ancient ruins at Cuma, which I had read about extensively and mentioned perhaps too often in the car, would wait. That first night was only about arrival, about the particular relief of being somewhere else, about the comedy of my navigation failures and the unexpected gift of having nothing to do but sit still in warm evening air. I woke at dawn to the sound of someone sweeping the path outside, a rhythmic, patient sound, and for a moment could not remember where I was. Then it came back, and I smiled before I was even fully conscious.