I have never been particularly good with directions, which is how I ended up circling the same roundabout in Udine three times before realising my sat nav had quietly given up on me entirely. There I was, windows down, sweating slightly in that particular way you do when you are definitely not lost but also definitely not found, clutching a scrap of paper with the property code IFC008 scribbled on it like some sort of cryptic clue.

The thing about Friuli is that it does not shout at you. It waits. After my third lap of honour past the same bemused cyclist, I took a wrong turn that turned out to be rather a good one. A narrow lane, overhung with vines, led me past a crumbling villa where an elderly chap was pruning roses with the focused intensity of a surgeon. He did not look up. I felt I had stumbled into someone else's afternoon, and I rather liked it.

The property itself sits on the edge of town, close enough to walk in for a coffee but far enough to pretend you are living some rustic fantasy. I pulled up, still slightly giddy from my unintended tour of Udine's outer ring road, and spent a good five minutes trying to work out which key fitted which lock. The garden was quiet except for a persistent cricket and the distant clatter of someone making lunch. Inside, the rooms were simple, tiled cool against the heat, with shutters that opened onto a view of fields I had absolutely not expected to find ten minutes from a city centre.

That evening, determined to make amends with my navigational failures, I set out with no particular plan. This is, I have learned, the only sensible approach to Friuli. I wandered down a lane marked only by a faded sign pointing toward a church, San something-or-other, the paint worn to a suggestion. The lane became a track, then a path between vineyards where the grapes hung fat and dusty. I passed a shed where someone was making what I later learned was frico, that miraculous combination of cheese and potato that Friulians have the good sense to eat regularly. The smell stopped me dead. A woman emerged, wiping her hands, and without much discussion pressed a warm piece into my palm. My Italian stretches to ordering wine and apologising; her dialect stretched to amused tolerance. We understood each other perfectly.

The church, when I found it, was locked, but the view from its crumbling steps was absurd. The plain spread out, flat and golden, toward Slovenia somewhere in the hazy distance. I sat there until the light went, feeling rather pleased with my incompetence. If I had arrived efficiently, I would never have met the rose pruner. If I had followed a proper walking route, I would have missed the frico entirely.

The next few days continued in this vein. A wrong turning after the market led me to a courtyard where an old man was restoring wooden furniture, surrounded by half-finished chairs like a flock of curious birds. He showed me his workshop without much talking, simply pointing out the joints, the grain, the patience of it. I bought nothing, learned little, and left with the distinct sense of having been briefly admitted to somewhere private.

There is a particular pleasure in getting lost somewhere that does not much mind either way. Udine and its surroundings do not perform for visitors. The castle on the hill, yes, that is on the postcards, but the real business of the place happens in lanes too small for maps, in sheds that smell of cheese, in workshops where time moves differently. I found a tiny osteria on my final evening by following a group of locals who looked like they knew where they were going, which is a strategy I recommend generally in life. The wine was local, red, slightly rough, and the owner brought out plates of prosciutto and pickles without my asking, apparently able to spot need when he saw it.

I left with my sense of direction no better than before, my car bearing the scars of several optimistic attempts at reversing down narrow lanes, and a firm conviction that the best parts of Friuli are the ones you find when you are definitely not where you meant to be.