I have never been so grateful for a sat nav in my entire life, and I have never wanted to throw one out of a moving vehicle quite so badly either. The journey from Rome to Ischia di Castro had been going swimmingly until the final six miles, when dear Brenda - yes, I name my sat navs, it is a problem - decided that what our hire Fiat really needed was an agricultural adventure. One moment we were on a perfectly respectable road, the next we were bouncing down something that I can only describe as a gravelly suggestion of a path, flanked by olive trees that seemed to be leaning in to laugh at us. My partner, ever the optimist, kept saying things like "oh, this is probably the scenic route" right up until the moment a goat gave us a look of pure confusion.

It was late September when we visited, and that goat was not the only creature surprised to see us. The whole of northern Lazio seemed to be in that glorious, slightly sleepy state of transition, caught between the frantic energy of high summer and the more contemplative mood of autumn. The vineyards we passed were heavy with grapes not quite ready for harvest, their leaves just beginning to turn at the edges like toast forgotten under the grill. The air had that particular quality you only really get in central Italy at this time of year - warm enough to make you believe summer might linger forever, but with an underlying crispness that caught you off guard when the sun dipped.

We arrived at the property in the golden hour, which sounds terribly romantic until you realise that golden hour also means "absolutely blinding if you are trying to reverse up a steep drive." The house sat perched on a hillside with views that made me forget my white-knuckled terror of the previous twenty minutes. The garden was in that slightly unkempt late-season state - geraniums still putting on a brave show, herbs gone slightly woody and leggy, a fig tree dropping its fruit with casual abundance onto the terrace. I ate three figs before I had even found the key safe. They were warm from the sun and split open like little treasures, and I felt immediately that this was how September in Lazio was meant to be experienced - through sticky fingers and contented sighing.

The swimming pool, I should note, was still very much open and very much necessary. The days were warm enough that a plunge felt essential rather than brave, though the evenings demanded something different entirely. We took to lighting the wood burner earlier each night, not because we strictly needed it, but because there is something deeply satisfying about a fire when the darkness starts arriving before dinner. I would sit with a glass of local white wine - something crisp from the nearby Maremma that tasted of minerals and sunshine - and watch the swallows gathering in their vast, chattering groups before their migration. They moved like ink dropped in water, and I found myself thinking about departures and arrivals, about how the season itself was a kind of journey.

The kitchen became our headquarters in a way it never would have been in July. In peak summer I suspect we would have been out at restaurants until midnight, but September evenings drew us inward. We made simple pasta with tomatoes that still actually tasted of something, bought from a tiny shop in Ischia di Castro where the owner seemed genuinely delighted that two confused Brits had found our way to his door. We ate outside until the chill drove us in, then retreated to that wood burner with books we never quite finished because we kept dozing off.

What struck me most, I think, was how the season made the place feel like a secret. The summer crowds had dissipated, leaving us with empty lanes and silent hills. The thermal springs at nearby Saturnia, which I gather are a nightmare of queues in August, were almost meditative in their autumn quiet. We floated in warm water as the cool air moved around us, watching steam rise into a sky that was somehow both pale and intensely blue.

I keep thinking about that goat, and about Brenda's terrible directions, and about how sometimes the wrong turn leads you exactly where you needed to be. September in Lazio does not shout for your attention. It waits, patient and golden, for you to slow down enough to notice it.