I should have known the sat-nav was up to no good when it tried to send me up what looked like a goat track somewhere past Trento. Twelve hours of driving from Manchester, three motorway services of questionable coffee, and one spectacular argument about whether I had actually packed the charging cables, and there I was, squinting at a gravel path that definitely did not lead to a spa hotel in the Dolomites.

The mishap, when it came, was almost impressively stupid. I had stopped for a final loo break at a petrol station near Bolzano, got back in the car, and somehow managed to shut my own jacket in the door without noticing. I drove a good two miles with this enormous puffer sleeve flapping about like a distressed seagull before a motorbike pulled alongside and the rider started gesturing wildly at my window. The mortification of having to pull over, open the door, and retrieve my jacket while he watched with what I can only describe as deeply Italian amusement, set the tone rather nicely for the rest of the journey.

By the time I actually found Peio Terme, tucked up in the Val di Sole with the mountains looming like giants who had just woken up grumpy, I was in that peculiar state where everything feels slightly unreal. The light up here does something odd to your perception, all sharp shadows and that pale, clear quality that makes the pine trees look almost black against the rock faces. I kept thinking I had driven into a postcard, which sounds trite until you have actually done it and find yourself half-expecting someone to step out from behind a tree and tell you the scenery is closed for maintenance.

The property itself sat there looking terribly sensible and welcoming, which was more than could be said for me. I had developed that special long-drive pallor, the one that makes you look like you have been living in a cupboard, and my hair had achieved a shape that defied both gravity and description. The woman who checked me in was far too polite to mention any of this, though I caught what I can only call a knowing warmth in her smile. She explained the thermal waters, the local walking routes, the times for breakfast, all while I nodded like someone who had definitely retained information rather than staring blankly at the mountain visible through the window behind her.

That first evening, I did not do much of anything purposeful. I wandered down to the village, which took all of seven minutes, bought some bread that was still warm, and sat on the little balcony watching the light change on the peaks. There is something about arriving somewhere after a difficult journey that makes you hyper-aware of everything, every smell of pine and woodsmoke, every cold edge to the air that reminds you how high up you have come. I thought about the jacket incident and found myself laughing properly for the first time that day, not the tight, polite laugh of someone who has been driving too long, but an actual release of something. It occurred to me that perhaps I needed to be slightly ridiculous more often, to let things go wrong in small ways and survive them.

The thermal pool waited for morning, and so did whatever walking I might manage. For now, there was just this extraordinary quiet, broken occasionally by a cowbell from somewhere down the valley, and the slow realisation that I had absolutely nothing I needed to do. The mountains did not care about my journey or my jacket or my sat-nav's creative interpretation of Italian roads. They simply sat there, being magnificent, while I sat there being profoundly ordinary, and somehow that felt like exactly the right beginning.