I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when the sat-nav decided that a dirt track through an olive grove was definitely the main road to Montefiascone. There I was, bumping along in my hire car, convinced I was being terribly adventurous, until I met a local farmer in a Fiat Panda who looked at me with the kind of pity usually reserved for people trying to parallel park in Rome during rush hour. He waved me back the way I'd come, and twenty minutes later I finally found the proper turning, dusty and slightly humbled.

The property sat on a gentle slope looking towards Lake Bolsena, and I have to say that first glimpse made the navigational chaos worth it. The stone walls had that lovely honey colour you only seem to get in this part of Lazio, and there was a terrace with a pergola dripping with vines that looked practically designed for evening wine drinking. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of someone who had been in a car for far too long and immediately decided to explore on foot, because that is absolutely the sort of person I am on holiday. Enthusiastic, slightly overambitious, and completely in denial about my fitness level.

My plan was simple and, in retrospect, beautifully naive. I would walk down to the lake shore, enjoy a gentle stroll, and be back in time for aperitivo. The weather was glorious, that particular Italian warmth that makes you feel like you're living in a film, and I set off in shorts and a t-shirt with a small bottle of water and the confidence of someone who had definitely not checked a map properly. The path started promisingly enough, winding through fields of sunflowers and past the occasional vineyard, but then it began to climb in a way that my thighs immediately protested about. I kept telling myself the view would be worth it, and it was, absolutely, but I was also becoming increasingly aware that I had brought entirely insufficient water for someone now sweating at an impressive rate.

The weather turned with the kind of theatrical timing that felt personally directed at me. One moment I was basking in sunshine, the next a warm wind picked up and dark clouds began gathering over the lake with almost comical speed. I had read about the sudden summer storms in this region, but reading about them and standing on an exposed hillside as the first fat raindrops land on your nose are rather different experiences. I turned back, naturally, and discovered that paths which were merely challenging in dry conditions become genuinely slippery entertainment when wet. I arrived back at the property looking like someone who had fallen into the lake rather than merely walked near it, my hair plastered to my head, my sandals making that squelching sound that would follow me for hours.

There is something wonderfully humbling about being defeated by both terrain and weather on your first afternoon. I stood on that terrace, wrapped in a towel because I had not packed a proper rain jacket for a summer holiday in Italy, and watched the storm roll across the water. The sky turned extraordinary colours, purple and gold and grey all mixed together, and the lake surface went from calm to properly dramatic. I felt rather small and rather silly and surprisingly content.

The farmer in the Fiat Panda had been right about one thing, I reflected. This was not a place for rushing or for assuming you knew better than the landscape. The Lazio countryside was going to teach me patience whether I wanted to learn it or not. I dried off, poured a glass of the local Est! Est!! Est!!! wine that the area is famous for, and made a new plan for the following day. More walking, naturally, because I am nothing if not stubborn, but perhaps with proper shoes, actual waterproofs, and a realistic understanding of how quickly the weather changes when you're this close to such a enormous body of water.

The storm passed as quickly as it had arrived, leaving everything smelling of warm earth and wet stone. I walked down to the edge of the property, still in my towel because I am also nothing if not committed to a look, and watched the last light fade over the lake. Tomorrow I would try again, wiser and hopefully drier, ready to let this place set the pace rather than the other way round.