I had been warned about the winding roads of northern Lazio, but nothing quite prepares you for the reality of navigating a hire car through countryside that seems to have been designed by someone with a grudge against straight lines. My partner and I were bound for a converted farmhouse near Bagnoregio, and by the time we reached the final stretch, I was feeling rather pleased with myself. Too pleased, as it turned out.

In my smugness, I missed the turning entirely. The satnav, which had been chirping helpful instructions in Italian with the occasional dramatic pause, suddenly fell silent in what I can only describe as digital disappointment. We carried on for a good ten minutes before I admitted defeat and attempted a three-point turn on a lane barely wide enough for a donkey. The donkey, incidentally, was watching from a nearby field with what I can only describe as professional interest.

This is where our holiday truly began.

Rather than backtracking immediately, we spotted a rough track leading towards some olive groves and decided, in that reckless way that only holidaymakers can, to see where it went. The track became a path, the path became a suggestion of a path, and then we found ourselves at a small stone chapel that appeared on no map I had ever seen. The door was unlocked. Inside, someone had left fresh wildflowers in a jar on the windowsill, and the afternoon light was doing something extraordinary through a window that had clearly been repaired with whatever glass was available at the time. We sat on the step and ate the emergency biscuits we kept finding in the glove compartment.

Getting properly lost became our unofficial theme.

The next morning, determined to reach Civita di Bagnoregio properly, we set off early and promptly got lost again. This time we wandered down a farm track and stumbled upon a tiny vineyard where an elderly gentleman was tending his vines with the concentration of a surgeon. He spoke no English, we spoke barely any Italian, but through gestures and what I now realise was probably accidental mime, he invited us to try his wine. It was rough, honest stuff, nothing like the polished bottles in the supermarkets, and we sat on plastic chairs in his yard while his cat judged us from the doorway. I have no idea what the vineyard was called. I could not find it again if you paid me.

Our farmhouse itself rewarded wandering. One evening, instead of driving to a restaurant, we walked down a lane we had ignored for three days and discovered a small trattoria that appeared to operate from someone's front room. The owner was also the cook, her husband the waiter, and their grandson ran between tables with water and endless patience. We ate homemade pappardelle with wild boar ragu and drank house wine that came in unmarked bottles. The bill was so modest I actually checked it twice, certain there had been a mistake.

I had arrived in Lazio with a list. Places to see, things to do, the efficient tourist's armoury. I left that list in the hire car, largely ignored, and found something far better in its place. There is a particular joy in accidental discovery that no guidebook can replicate, a quiet thrill in realising you have no idea where you are and not particularly caring.

On our final evening, we got lost one last time. The sun was setting, the cypress trees were doing their best Tuscan impression, and we found ourselves beside a small lake we had never seen marked anywhere. A heron was fishing at the edge, completely unconcerned by our presence. We stayed until the mosquitoes drove us away, and even then I was reluctant to leave.

I still do not know the name of that chapel, that vineyard, that lake. Part of me hopes I never find out. Some places belong to the lost, and there is something rather wonderful about that.