I have never been very good at reading maps, which is how I found myself reversing a hire car up a single-track road carved into a mountainside while a local farmer waved his arms with the enthusiasm of a man directing a helicopter landing. We were looking for Castello Tesino, somewhere above the village of the same name in the Dolomites, and I had confidently taken the wrong turning approximately three miles back. My partner sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression of loving patience that only twenty years together can produce, occasionally murmuring "perhaps the next left" in a tone that suggested she had given up on the concept of lefts altogether.

The property, when we finally found it, sat perched among meadows with views that made the whole agricultural detour worthwhile. A converted stone building with wooden balconies and shutters the colour of faded terracotta, it looked exactly like the sort of place where you might forget what day of the week it is. Which, I should say, became my immediate ambition.

We arrived in late afternoon, the sun still high and warm, carrying what the website had promised was a "compact but well-equipped" kitchen and, more importantly, a terrace with loungers. I use the word "compact" loosely here; I once owned a caravan with more counter space. But we were not here to cook elaborate meals. We were here to do very little, very slowly, in considerable sunshine.

The first morning set the pattern. I woke to light streaming through wooden shutters and the distant sound of cowbells, which I initially mistook for an alarm clock and tried to swat into silence. Coffee on the terrace, brewed in a moka pot that took roughly the same time as my usual commute, followed by a breakfast of bread from the village bakery and local cheese that tasted of the meadows those cows had been wandering through. I read perhaps ten pages of a novel before dozing off, waking with the book splayed across my chest like a small animal.

My partner, more industrious by nature, would occasionally suggest a stroll. These expeditions never exceeded a gentle hour, winding through the meadows immediately around the property or down to the village itself, where we would sit with another coffee and watch the world fail to hurry by. Castello Tesino village is not large. It has a church, a handful of houses, and a sense of permanence that makes you feel rather fleeting by comparison. We never felt the need to venture farther. The mountains surrounded us on every side, their limestone faces changing colour through the day from pale grey to rose to violet, and that seemed quite sufficient entertainment.

I had packed running shoes with the vague intention of morning jogs. They remained in my suitcase, and I felt no guilt whatsoever. The lounger was too comfortable, the shade of the terrace too perfectly positioned for afternoon reading, the rhythm of doing almost nothing too seductive to resist.

There was a small swimming spot near the village, nothing formal, just a place where the river widened and locals knew to bring towels. We spent one afternoon there, the water shockingly cold against sun-warmed skin, drying on rocks like lizards. I attempted to read more of my novel and succeeded in getting the pages damp.

By the end of the week, I had finished one book, started two others without urgency, and developed what my partner called my "Dolomite posture" - a permanent half-recline that I found difficult to abandon even for meals. We ate simply, bought from the village or the slightly larger market town a few miles away, never bothering with restaurants. What would have been the point? The terrace at golden hour, a glass of local wine, the mountains softening into silhouette.

I am not someone who finds relaxation easy. My mind tends toward lists and purposes, the anxious ticking of unseen clocks. But there was something about that particular spot, that particular pace, that wore down my resistance like water on stone. I stopped checking my phone. I stopped planning. I simply was, for a while, a creature of sunshine and occasional gentle movement.

On our final morning, I found myself sitting with my coffee, watching mist rise from the valley below, and realised I could not immediately recall what day it was. I chose not to check. Some knowledge, I had learned, is better left unhurried.