I have never been so relieved to see a man with a moped and a crate of lemons as I was when we finally reached Castellabate.

The journey from Naples had been straightforward enough until I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I could navigate the final stretch myself. My partner sat in the passenger seat making increasingly worried noises as I guided our hire car up roads that seemed to narrow with every bend, certain that my phone's GPS was playing some elaborate prank. At one point I became so convinced we were heading into someone's vegetable patch that I reversed straight into a low stone wall with a crunch that still makes me wince. The wall was fine. The bumper, less so. I sat there contemplating whether I could simply abandon the vehicle and start a new life as a goat herder when this lemon-bearing chap appeared, gesturing enthusiastically that we were nearly there, just up, up, always up.

The property itself sat perched like a stubborn old cat refusing to come down from a wall. A proper stone house with terracotta tiles and shutters that had seen better decades. I was still apologising to the car when a woman emerged from next door, introduced herself as Rosa, and immediately began telling me about her nephew in Luton. I had not asked. I did not mind. Within four minutes I knew his entire employment history, his questionable taste in football teams, and the precise recipe for his mother's ragu, which Rosa considered an abomination.

Our first evening, we walked down to the old town, me still slightly vibrating from the drive. At a small bar near the piazza, an elderly gentleman named Enzo insisted on explaining the correct method for eating mozzarella di bufala. He used his hands a great deal. A younger man at the counter, perhaps his grandson, rolled his eyes with the practised exhaustion of someone who had witnessed this lecture approximately four thousand times. Enzo ignored him completely, pressing a piece of bread into my hand and watching me like a hawk until I took a bite. It was extraordinary, of course. Everything tastes better when consumed under surveillance.

The next morning I attempted to buy vegetables from a van that appeared at the bottom of our lane, honking its horn like a ship in distress. The driver, a woman called Concetta with magnificent eyebrows, refused my money until I could name three proper uses for courgette flowers. I managed two and she sighed heavily, took my euros, and threw in some tomatoes "for the Englishman who does not know how to cook." I did not correct her. The tomatoes were still warm from the sun.

What struck me most, I think, was how quickly these brief encounters accumulated into something like belonging. I am usually the sort of person who apologises to shop assistants for existing in their vicinity. Here, my awkwardness seemed almost expected, perhaps even welcomed as a kind of entertainment. Rosa still waves at me from her window each morning, though I suspect she is checking whether I have damaged any more local infrastructure.

I came for the coastline and the promise of proper pizza. I stayed, quite happily, for the people who could not help but make me part of their morning routine, their family disputes, their fierce opinions about cheese.