I have never been so relieved to see a swimming pool in my life, and that includes the time I nearly drowned at Center Parcs as a teenager. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The drive from Bologna airport to Loiano was supposed to take forty minutes. I had it all mapped out, playlist ready, snacks distributed to the children in the back. What I had not accounted for was my own spectacular gift for misreading Italian road signs. Somewhere between the A1 and the SP65, I took what I can only describe as an "optimistic left" and found myself climbing a hillside road barely wide enough for a Vespa, let alone our overpacked estate car. The sat nav made a noise like a disappointed tutor and went silent. My wife gave me that look. You know the one.

Forty minutes became ninety. The snacks ran out. A child asked if we were in France now. I maintained a cheerful exterior while internally rehearsing my apology speech for ruining Christmas. Then, quite suddenly, the road opened up and there it was: a proper stone farmhouse sitting among rolling hills, cypress trees standing to attention like they had been painted there deliberately. The kind of place that makes you forget you have been swearing at a steering wheel for the best part of an hour.

I will not pretend the arrival was graceful. I reversed into a lavender bush trying to park. The owner, a splendid woman called Luisa who spoke exactly eleven words of English, watched this with the patient expression of someone who has seen many worse. She handed us a key, pointed at a fig tree heavy with fruit, and said "yours" with a gesture that encompassed the whole property. I nearly hugged her.

The house itself was exactly what you want from an Emilia Romagna cottage stay. Thick walls that kept the heat out. A kitchen with actual terracotta tiles and a fireplace you could stand up in. Bedrooms with iron bedsteads that creaked satisfyingly. My son discovered the pool and was in his trunks before I had finished unloading the boot. My daughter found the hammock and disappeared into a book for two hours. I found the outdoor dining table and sat down with a beer I had not earned, feeling something unfamiliar settle over me.

It was not luxury, not really. The shower had two temperatures and one of them was "surprise." The WiFi worked best if you stood near the olive tree. But that was rather the point. We were here for the simple stuff: long breakfasts with proper coffee, tomatoes that tasted of actual tomatoes, evenings grilling local sausages while the children finally got tired enough to sleep properly. Luisa had left us a bottle of Sangiovese and some aged Parmigiano, which I took as both a welcome gift and a subtle hint about the local priorities.

That first evening, as the light went golden over the hills and the cicadas started up their evening shift, I caught myself doing nothing. Just sitting, watching my family unwind in real time, drinking wine that cost less than a London pint. The wrong turn, the lavender bush, the snack shortage: all of it had delivered us here, to this particular moment of accidental perfection.

I still maintain the left turn was not entirely my fault. But I am rather glad I took it.