I have never been so relieved to see a stone wall in my life. Three hours after leaving Naples airport, our hire car wheezing up yet another switchback, my partner declared we were "definitely lost" for the fourth time. I was gripping the passenger seat, the sat nav had given up and started suggesting we swim to Sardinia, and our youngest was doing that ominous quiet thing that usually precedes either sleep or absolute pandemonium. Then we rounded a bend and there it was: Laureana Cilento, clinging to the hillside like it had grown there centuries ago and simply refused to budge.

The mishap, because there is always a mishap with us, came roughly thirty seconds later. I leapt out to open the iron gate, feeling terribly rustic and Italian, only to discover I had trodden in something that was absolutely not mud. There I was, one foot raised like a flamingo, frantically wiping my sandal on the grass while the owner waved cheerfully from the terrace. "Ciao!" he called. "You have found us!" I smiled back with the fixed grin of a woman who had just made intimate acquaintance with goat husbandry and was now tracking it towards his beautiful property.

He was far too gracious to mention it, of course. Instead he showed us through to the terrace, and I forgot everything. The view stopped me mid-step. Rolling hills tumbled down to the Tyrrhenian Sea, hazy and silver-blue in the afternoon light. Somewhere below, probably still arguing with the sat nav, lay the village of San Marco di Castellabate, but up here there was nothing but olive groves, distant church bells, and the sort of silence that makes you realise how loudly your own thoughts have been chattering.

The villa itself felt properly lived-in, not one of those sterile holiday lets where you are afraid to sit down. Terracotta floors, wooden beams thick enough to swing from, a kitchen that smelled faintly of garlic and previous summers. Our children immediately claimed the pool, shrieking as they discovered the water was properly cold, not the tepid bathwater of a Spanish resort. I watched them from the terrace, still clutching a glass of local Falanghina that our host had pressed upon me with the firm insistence of someone who knows exactly what a family needs after a journey.

That first evening, we attempted a barbecue. I say attempted. The built-in stone grill looked magnificent and medieval, but we had failed to account for Italian charcoal, which apparently requires the patience of a saint and the bellows capacity of a blacksmith. My partner fanned and muttered. I opened more wine. The children, feral with hunger and freedom, ate bread and tomatoes straight from the bowl while we waited. By the time the sausages emerged, half-charred and half-questionable, nobody cared. We ate at the long outdoor table, swatting the occasional mosquito, watching the last light drain from the sea.

I found myself properly unwinding somewhere between the second glass and the children's reluctant bedtime. There is something about this kind of holiday that strips away the performance of it all. No restaurants to book, no sights to tick off, no need to be anywhere but here. Just the chaotic, slightly grubby pleasure of being together in a beautiful place, with nothing more demanding than deciding whether to swim before or after lunch.

The goat incident, by the way, became the running joke of the week. Every morning I would step outside with exaggerated caution, scanning the terrace like a bomb disposal expert. The children thought this was the height of comedy. By day three, they had named the unseen goat Giuseppe and composed a song about him.

We did venture down to the village eventually, for gelato and proper coffee and to feel the sea between our toes. But we always came back up that winding road with something like anticipation. To the pool, to the view, to the particular peace of a place that asks nothing of you but presence.

I still think about that first afternoon, standing on one leg in the driveway, convinced the holiday was ruined before it began. How wrong I was. Sometimes the best moments come slightly scuffed around the edges, smelling faintly of farmyard, and all the more memorable for it.