I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I put the sat nav postcode into my phone and ended up in someone's olive grove just outside Salerno. There I was, bumping along a track meant for tractors, convinced I was being terribly adventurous, until a very patient nonno waved me back toward actual tarmac with the kind of gesture that suggested this happened at least twice a week to British tourists.

The proper road to Sant'Egidio del Monte Albino wound up through lemon groves that smelled absolutely extraordinary, all blossom and sharp green leaves, and I finally found the property with its stone walls and that satisfyingly heavy wooden door that makes you feel like you've arrived somewhere that matters. I dropped my bags, immediately tripped over the step into the kitchen because I was staring at the pizza oven in the garden rather than watching my feet, and decided the only sensible response was to find food without delay.

The local alimentari turned out to be five minutes down the hill, run by a woman called Rosa who took one look at my attempt to ask for "local cheese" in phrasebook Italian and switched to flawless English with visible relief. I left with mozzarella di bufala that was still warm, proper San Marzano tomatoes, a fistful of basil, and a bottle of local Aglianico that Rosa insisted I needed. She was not wrong about any of it.

That first evening I attempted to cook properly in the property's kitchen, which had one of those gas hobs that runs on bottled gas and requires a certain theatrical flourish with the ignition. I produced a caprese salad that looked respectable enough, though I ate it on the terrace watching the sun drop behind Vesuvius and frankly could have been eating plain bread and still been delighted. The wine helped, obviously. The wine helped a great deal.

The following morning I discovered the Thursday market, which takes over the main piazza with stalls of vegetables that actually still have soil on them, and fish so fresh they're practically still considering their options. I bought far too much, as one does, including some sardines I had absolutely no plan for. The fishmonger showed me how to clean them properly, which I promptly forgot, and I spent twenty minutes that evening on YouTube in the kitchen with my phone propped against the olive oil bottle, trying not to ruin my market haul.

I did ruin the sardines, for the record. I absolutely incinerated them. The pizza oven, which I had been eyeing with ambition, suddenly seemed like a terrible idea given my track record with a simple frying pan. I retreated to the trattoria on the corner, a place called Da Peppe where nobody seemed to mind that I was alone, and ate pasta e fagioli that was so good I actually closed my eyes at one point, which the waiter definitely noticed and definitely found amusing.

The pub situation, if we're being precise, isn't really pub-pub territory. What you get instead are bars that open from six in the morning for espresso and somehow transition seamlessly into wine and aperitivo by late afternoon without anyone seeming to change gear. I found my regular at Caffe Centrale, where the barman started making my spritz without asking by day three, which I chose to take as integration rather than predictable routine.

By the end of the week I had mastered exactly two dishes: the caprese, and a sort of improvised pasta with whatever looked good at the market, which I cooked with increasing confidence and decreasing precision. The pizza oven remained untested, a monument to my respect for its potential and my understanding of my own limitations. I left a bottle of that Aglianico for the next guests, with a note suggesting they ask Rosa for advice and perhaps avoid the sardines unless they were considerably more competent than I had been.

I drove away considerably rounder, slightly more knowledgeable about fish preparation, and absolutely certain I would return, preferably with someone who understood gas hobs.