I should have known the sat nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send us through a field near Viterbo. Twelve hours after leaving Gatwick, bleary-eyed and smelling of airport coffee, my partner and I were crawling up a winding road in our hire car, convinced we'd taken a wrong turn somewhere around Rome. The signs for Soriano nel Cimino kept appearing and disappearing like a mirage, and I had developed that particular tension headache that only comes from navigating Italian roundabouts in the dark.

The mishap, when it came, was almost laughably small. We had stopped at a petrol station just outside the village to buy provisions, and I managed to lock the keys in the boot while attempting to wrestle a six-litre bottle of water into the back. There we stood, in the amber glow of a failing streetlamp, watching our groceries sit smugly next to the spare key. My partner said nothing for a full minute, which in our relationship speaks volumes. A very kind attendant eventually produced a wire coat hanger with the casual expertise of someone who has seen this many times before. I smiled through my embarrassment and practised my halting Italian, which seemed to amuse him greatly.

The final approach to the property was almost worth the chaos. The road climbed through dense chestnut woods, the trees pressing close on either side, and then suddenly opened onto a view of the village proper, its medieval tower visible against a sky still faintly pink from the vanished sun. Soriano nel Cimino sits in the Cimini Hills like something deliberately hidden from the modern world, and arriving at night only heightened that sense of slipping through a gap in time.

The house itself was tucked along a narrow lane on the outskirts, a solid stone building that looked as though it had been keeping watch over the valley for centuries. I fumbled with the lockbox by torchlight, still flustered from the boot incident, and nearly dropped the keys down a drain that I am convinced was positioned there specifically to mock tired tourists. The door swung open with a satisfying weight, and the smell hit immediately: wood polish, dried lavender, and that particular cool dryness of old stone walls.

Inside, everything was simple and unpretentious in the way that only genuinely old places can manage. Terracotta floors, wooden beams that my partner had to duck beneath, a kitchen with actual shutters rather than curtains. I found myself standing in the middle of the living room, still holding my coat, suddenly aware of how much noise we had been making for hours without noticing. The silence of the hills pressed in, not emptily but generously, like someone making space for you.

I poured us both the wine we had thankfully carried in the front seat, and we sat on the terrace in the dark, too tired to find the light switch. Somewhere below, a dog barked once and thought better of it. The village lights twinkled distantly, and I could make out the silhouette of the Palazzo Chigi-Albani against the stars. I thought about the locked boot, the sat nav's betrayal, my terrible Italian, and how none of it mattered now. We had arrived somewhere that demanded stillness, and I was only just beginning to slow down enough to meet it.

The wine was cheap and perfect. I remember thinking that this was how holidays should begin: slightly chaotic, thoroughly foolish, and utterly unprepared for the quiet that waits at the end of the journey.