I should have known the holiday gods were having a laugh when my sat-nav decided Lido di Spina was somewhere near Bologna airport rather than, well, actual Lido di Spina. There I was, trundling down the A13 in a hire car the size of a small boat, absolutely convinced I was twenty minutes from paradise. An hour and a half later, after a scenic tour of industrial estates and one very confusing roundabout featuring a man selling watermelons, I finally found the coast. The mishap? I'd left my phone charger in the airport Costa, so I was navigating on pure instinct and a paper map I'd nicked from the rental desk. Not my finest hour.

The approach to Lido di Spina itself felt like entering a different world. After all that motorway monotony, the pinewoods suddenly closed in on either side, tall and fragrant, filtering the afternoon light into something almost magical. You could smell the sea before you saw it, that particular salty freshness that makes you immediately relax your shoulders even when you don't realise they've been up round your ears. I wound down the window like a proper tourist, letting the warm air blast in, and promptly got a faceful of pine pollen for my troubles. Cue the sneezing fit that lasted approximately three traffic lights.

Finding the property meant navigating streets named after painters, which felt rather cultured until I realised I'd been round the same block twice because apparently I cannot tell my Tintoretto from my Tiepolo. The area has that particular Italian seaside charm, low-rise buildings tucked amongst the trees, everything feeling deliberately unhurried. No towering hotels here, just quiet roads where people potter about on bicycles with baskets full of shopping.

When I finally located the right place, I sat in the car for a solid five minutes just appreciating the silence. No airport announcements, no motorway drone, just cicadas and the distant suggestion of waves. The pinewood setting is no joke, these trees are everywhere, giving everything a lovely filtered greenness even in bright sunlight. I felt my shoulders actually drop this time, the proper holiday decompression starting to happen.

The first evening was spent doing absolutely nothing of consequence. I wandered down to find the beach, got pleasantly lost amongst more pine-shaded paths, and eventually emerged onto sand that stretched forever in both directions. The Adriatic was doing its calm evening thing, little ripples catching the last light. I hadn't even unpacked properly yet, still had motorway snacks in the car, and there I was watching the sky turn properly spectacular.

That night, sitting on the terrace with a supermarket beer because I couldn't face finding a restaurant, I had one of those moments of gentle self-reflection. Here I was, nearly forty, still capable of leaving chargers in airports and getting lost in small Italian towns, still slightly amazed that I'd made it anywhere under my own steam. The bloke selling watermelons would probably have navigated better. But there's something rather lovely about arriving somewhere slightly rumpled and ridiculous, about the journey being just chaotic enough to make the stillness at the end feel earned.

I fell asleep to those cicadas, windows wide open, already plotting a proper exploration of the local area but secretly hoping I'd mostly just do more of nothing at all.