I have never been so grateful for a sat nav with a sense of humour. Ours decided that the direct route from Naples to Casalvelino was far too obvious, so it sent us up a goat track that I am fairly certain was actually someone's driveway. Three-point turns, a minor argument about whose idea it was to hire the larger car, and one very unimpressed-looking shepherd later, we finally spotted the sea glinting below and knew we had arrived in the Cilento stretch of Campania.

It was late October when we pulled up to the property, and the first thing that struck me was how dramatically the season had coloured everything. The summer crowds had well and truly vanished, leaving behind a coastline that felt almost bashful in its quietness. The pool, which I had stared at longingly in the listing photos, was now covered and surrounded by a carpet of fallen leaves in shades of amber and rust. I will admit to a small pang of disappointment. There I was in my hastily-bought swimming trunks, and there was the water, looking thoroughly uninterested in my plans.

The owner, a cheerful woman called Rosa who spoke rapid Italian and surprisingly good Scouse, explained that we were her last guests of the year. She showed us around with the brisk efficiency of someone who knew every creaky floorboard and temperamental tap. The terrace, she gestured proudly, was where we would want to spend our evenings. I nodded enthusiastically, though privately I wondered whether November evenings in southern Italy would reward such optimism.

How wrong I was. That first night, as the sun dipped behind the hills and the temperature dropped to that perfect crispness that demands a jumper but not a coat, we sat out with glasses of local Aglianico and watched the lights of fishing boats flicker on the darkening water. The summer heat would have driven us indoors by now, desperate for air conditioning and cold water. Instead, the autumn air felt like an invitation to slow down properly, to notice things I might otherwise have missed.

The mornings became my favourite part. I would wake to mist hanging low over the olive groves, the trees silvered with dew, and make coffee in the small kitchen while the heating system made determined clanking sounds. Rosa had left us a basket of late-season figs and walnuts from her own trees, their sweetness intensified by the cooler nights. I ate them on the terrace wrapped in a blanket, feeling faintly ridiculous and entirely content.

The local beach, a short stroll down the hill, had transformed into something wonderfully theatrical. Storms had rearranged the pebbles into new patterns, and the waves crashed with an energy that summer visitors never witness. We walked for miles without seeing another soul, collecting bits of driftwood and arguing about whether that particular rock formation looked more like a sleeping dog or Winston Churchill.

There were practical seasonal adjustments, of course. The local shop kept shorter hours, and we learned to plan around the siesta that seemed to lengthen as the days shortened. One afternoon we arrived at a recommended trattoria to find it closed for the winter, the owner having decamped to visit family in Salerno. We stood in the empty car park and laughed at our poor timing, then drove back to cook pasta with the last of Rosa's tomatoes, jarred and preserved in olive oil.

What I had initially mourned as a missed opportunity - no pool, no blazing sun, no long lazy lunches in full heat - became the very thing that made the stay memorable. The season demanded a different rhythm, one of early nights and misty discoveries, of hearty local stews instead of light salads, of conversations that stretched into darkness because there was nowhere else to be and no heat driving you to seek shade.

On our final morning, Rosa brought us a bottle of her own limoncello, the lemons harvested just weeks before. She told us the property would sleep now through winter, the shutters closed against the rains that would come. I felt an unexpected privilege at having caught this in-between time, neither the full bustle of summer nor the deep hush of winter, but something tender and transient.

We left with our boots muddy from a final walk, the sat nav behaving itself for once, and a boot full of walnuts I would spend weeks trying to crack open. I have stayed in many beautiful places, but I suspect I will remember this one most vividly - not despite the season, but because of it.