I have never been so happy to see a building with a fountain in front of it as I was when we finally pulled up to our holiday let in Salsomaggiore Terme. The drive from the UK had been one of those classic British-Italian adventures: twelve hours, three wrong turns round Bologna's ring road, and a small but deeply humiliating incident at a motorway services near Modena involving me, a self-service coffee machine, and what I can only describe as an unexpected volcanic eruption of crema. My wife still has the photo. I still have the stain on my favourite linen shirt.

By the time we reached Emilia-Romagna, I had adopted that particular state of British travel delirium where you find yourself aggressively grateful for basic amenities. Working air conditioning in the hire car? God bless the Italians. A functioning toilet at the petrol station? These people truly understand civilisation. So when the satnav finally announced we had arrived in Salsomaggiore Terme, I actually cheered. Out loud. Like a man who had just completed an expedition rather than a perfectly ordinary European road trip.

The town itself announced itself with that particular Italian magic I always forget exists until I see it again. Grand Liberty-style buildings rising up in soft yellows and creams, the air carrying something I couldn't quite place - not quite sea, not quite mountain, but that distinct mineral tang you get in proper spa towns. Salsomaggiore has been drawing people in for their health since the nineteenth century, and arriving there, you immediately understand why someone in 1895 would have thought yes, this is exactly where I need to take the waters and recover from my nervous condition.

Our holiday home sat in that sweet spot of being properly in town without being overwhelmed by it. I had worried, in my typical fashion, that "termin the heart of Salsomaggiore" might mean "technically within municipal boundaries, enjoy your twenty-minute march to a cup of tea." Instead, we found ourselves on a pleasant residential street where actual Italian people were going about actual Italian lives, which I always find infinitely more reassuring than being deposited in some tourist-only zone.

The key collection went suspiciously smoothly, which immediately put me on edge. There is a law of British travel that states the smoother the arrival, the more catastrophic the eventual discovery. I spent the first ten minutes waiting for the reveal. Hidden mould? Non-functional shower? Previous occupants still in residence, confused and potentially hostile? But no. The place was spotless, sensibly laid out, and possessed of that particular quality of Italian holiday accommodation where everything is slightly more attractive than you had dared hope for.

I did my usual inspection circuit, opening every cupboard and drawer with the pointless thoroughness of a man who has no intention of using more than three of them. My wife unpacked with purpose while I stood on the balcony, attempting to orient myself. Below, a woman was calling to someone across the street in that melodic Parma dialect that sounds, to my untrained ear, like singing that happens to contain information. Somewhere nearby, a scooter started up with the enthusiasm of a wasp emerging from hibernation.

The mishap with the coffee machine had left me jittery and over-caffeinated for most of the journey, but standing there in the early evening warmth, I felt something shift. The particular tension of travel - the vigilance, the low-grade anxiety about what comes next - began to loosen its grip. I was still wearing the stained shirt. I had not yet managed a successful Italian coffee without assistance. But I was here, in this strange and lovely town, with a week stretching ahead and absolutely nothing that required my immediate competence.

That first evening, we walked out to find something to eat, moving slowly through streets that seemed to glow in the fading light. I will not pretend I navigated our dinner order with any particular grace. I will not claim I understood everything said to me. But I sat there in the warm air, eating something wonderful that I could not have made myself, drinking wine that cost less than it should, and I thought: this is why we do it. The long drives, the coffee disasters, the sustained mild confusion of being somewhere else. For this particular moment, in this particular place, where everything is slightly unfamiliar and therefore somehow more vivid.

Tomorrow I would attempt the spa waters, and probably embarrass myself in some new and creative fashion. Tonight, I was simply present, stained shirt and all, already half in love with a town I had known for three hours.