I have never been someone who reads instructions properly, which is how I ended up driving down a dirt track in Lazio convinced I was about to discover a secret beach, only to find myself face to face with a very unimpressed goat and a man selling tomatoes from his garage. This was roughly twenty minutes after collecting the keys to our holiday let in Ardea, and I had already achieved peak chaos.

The journey from Ciampino had been straightforward enough, if you consider navigating Italian roundabouts while your sat nav has an existential crisis straightforward. My partner, who had foolishly let me map-read, spent most of the drive making that particular humming noise people make when they are choosing not to say "I told you so." The property itself, when we finally arrived, was a proper little gem tucked down a lane that I absolutely would have missed twice without his intervention. A compact villa with its own pool, surrounded by pine trees and that heavy, warm silence you only really get in Mediterranean suburbs where the afternoon belongs to cicadas and absolutely nobody else.

We dumped our bags with the enthusiastic chaos of people who have been travelling since dawn, then promptly ignored every sensible suggestion in the welcome folder. Instead of heading to the advertised local beach, which was apparently a fifteen-minute stroll, I became fixated on a footpath I spotted behind a neighbouring garden wall. It looked unofficial. It looked, to my mind, adventurous. My partner suggested we at least bring water. I waved him off with the confidence of someone about to get very lost very quickly.

The path started promisingly enough, winding between gardens and past a small vineyard where an elderly woman waved at us with what I now recognise as sympathetic foresight. Within ten minutes the trail had forked, then forked again, then dissolved into something that was definitely more suggestion than path. We passed a collapsed stone structure that might have been a well or might have been a very ambitious compost heap. We found a grove of wild fig trees, absolutely laden with fruit, and spent a good while standing there like absolute lemons trying to reach the ripe ones while wasps conducted aggressive aerial manoeuvres around our heads.

The proper discovery came when we stumbled through some scratchy bushes and found ourselves in what I can only describe as somebody's accidentally beautiful backyard. An ancient olive grove, clearly untended for years, had been colonised by wildflowers and butterflies. At its centre sat a stone bench, weathered smooth, positioned to catch the afternoon light through the trees. There was no sign explaining it, no fence protecting it, no Instagram plaque declaring it a hidden gem. It was simply there, waiting, as if the grove had been keeping it secret for decades and had finally decided we were sufficiently pathetic and lost to deserve it.

We sat on that bench for nearly an hour, eating the figs we had managed to harvest, watching the light change through the olive branches. My partner, who is generally the more sensible one, admitted that my terrible sense of direction had finally paid off. I felt disproportionately smug about this, which lasted precisely until I tried to lead us back and took us in a complete circle to the same fig tree.

That evening, defeated and delighted, we did eventually find the proper local beach, a modest stretch of sand near Tor San Lorenzo where families were grilling fish and children were still splashing about in the golden hour. We ate pizza at a place that looked like someone's front room, run by a man who spoke no English but communicated entirely through enthusiastic gestures and extra anchovies. It was perfect precisely because we had not planned it, because we had earned our exhaustion through glorious incompetence.

The rest of the week followed this pattern. We found a bakery by following our noses down an alley that was definitely not on any route. We discovered a tiny chapel, door unlocked, candles still burning, tucked between modern apartment blocks like a prayer that someone had forgotten to finish. We got properly lost in the agricultural land behind Ardea, where artichoke fields stretch to the horizon and the occasional farmhouse sells wine from plastic tanks with handwritten prices.

Each time we set out with some vague intention, and each time we were diverted by something unmarked, unofficial, and entirely our own. The property became our reliable base, our poolside refuge where we would return with sunburn and stories, comparing notes on which wrong turn had produced the best accidental treasure.

I think there is something particular about holiday rentals in places like Ardea, slightly removed from the obvious tourist routes, that encourages this kind of wandering. You are not in Rome, with its demanding magnificence. You are not in a resort, with its scheduled pleasures. You are in a functioning town where life continues around you, where the interesting things do not announce themselves but simply exist for whoever happens to pass by.

On our final morning, I tried to find the olive grove again. I failed completely, which felt exactly right. Some places should remain hidden, should require the particular magic of getting lost to discover them at all. We left with sand still in our shoes, fig stains on my favourite shirt, and the certain knowledge that my terrible navigation had finally found its purpose.