The Satnav Saga and the Art of Doing Very Little in Lamon

I shall begin with the fundamental truth that no self-respecting British motorist ever admits: I trusted the satnav. There we were, winding up through the Dolomites with the sort of confidence that only comes from having successfully navigated the M6 on a Friday evening. The voice announced we had arrived at our destination, and we found ourselves staring at a field of very unimpressed goats. No charming alpine property. No welcoming terrace. Just goats, and one of them definitely smirked.

Forty minutes, one extremely narrow reversing manoeuvre, and a humbling conversation with a local farmer later, we finally located the actual property in Lamon. I have since deleted that satnav's voice from my life entirely. We shall not speak of her again.

But oh, what a difference those forty minutes made. Rounding the final bend properly this time, the place revealed itself in that particular way mountain villages have - as if it had been waiting patiently for us to stop being idiots. The property sat there in the sunshine, all wooden balconies and flower boxes spilling over with geraniums, the kind of red that makes you wonder why you bother with gardens back home when clearly the Italians have cracked it.

The first thing you notice, once you have stopped sweating from goat-related panic, is the light. It falls differently up here. Sharper somehow, but softer too. I spent a solid twenty minutes on arrival just standing on the terrace with a cup of tea that I had made incorrectly because Italian kettles work on some mysterious continental frequency that punishes the impatient. The tea was wrong. The moment was perfect.

We had arrived with grand intentions, as one does. Hiking lists. Cultural objectives. A spreadsheet, I am mildly ashamed to confess. Yet within hours, the spreadsheet had become a coaster, and the grand intentions had dissolved into something far more radical: the deliberate pursuit of absolutely nothing.

The days took on a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as rhythm at all. Morning coffee on the balcony, watching the mist peel back from the mountains like someone slowly unwrapping a gift. A wander down to the village, perhaps, for bread that actually tastes of something. The afternoon given over to reading in the sunshine until the words began to swim and a nap became not indulgence but medical necessity.

I had brought three books and finished none of them. This is, I have decided, the true measure of a proper holiday. The book becomes companion rather than project. You read the same paragraph twice, three times, looking up to watch a buzzard circling or to follow the progress of an elderly gentleman proceeding up the lane with the unhurried dignity of someone who has never owned a satnav in his life.

The local exploration, when we managed it, extended precisely to where our legs felt like stopping. A meadow here, a viewpoint there. We found a bench one afternoon, positioned with almost suspicious perfection to catch the afternoon sun, and I am not exaggerating when I say we returned to it on four consecutive days. We named it. I shall not tell you what, as you will judge us.

There is something quietly revolutionary about this approach, I have come to believe. We are so conditioned to extract maximum value from every experience, to optimise and capture and achieve. Yet here, with the mountains watching indifferently and the sun doing its slow work, achievement became simply this: being present enough to notice when the light shifted, when the air cooled, when your tea had finally reached drinkable temperature.

On our final evening, I sat on that terrace again, watching the last sun catch the peaks. The goats, had they been present, would have found me greatly improved. More patient. Slightly browner. Thoroughly unconcerned with what came next.

The satnav, I understand, has found a new home in a drawer. Some lessons, like some views, are worth the wrong turn.