I have never been so pleased to see a set of keys taped to a doorframe in my entire life. Six hours, two trains, one questionable motorway sandwich, and a spectacularly failed attempt at speaking Italian to a petrol station attendant had brought me to a quiet residential street in Diano Marina, and there they were: a small envelope with my name misspelled in charming block capitals.

The mishap, because there is always one, had occurred roughly forty minutes outside Genoa. I had been rather proud of my packing, you see. Everything folded with geometric precision, a separate bag for shoes, even a tiny travel iron I have never once used. Then the hire car boot decided it had other plans. One sharp corner, one enthusiastic suitcase, and my carefully curated toiletries bag performed a perfect arc into the footwell, scattering my dignity and approximately half a bottle of factor fifty across the upholstery. I still smell faintly of coconut. The car does too. I suspect it always will.

By the time I reached the property, a modest apartment in a low-rise block with the kind of cream-coloured walls that seem to glow in late afternoon sun, I had accepted my fate. The coconut fate. The slightly sticky fate. I found parking with the blind optimism of someone who has already lost everything, and trudged up to find those blessed keys.

The first thing that struck me was the smell. Not the coconut. Something else entirely. Through the open balcony door came that particular Ligurian combination of warm stone, distant pine, and salt you cannot quite locate but know is there. I stepped inside and immediately understood why people return to these places year after year. The apartment was simple, unpretentious, the sort of space that knows its job and does it well. Terracotta tiles underfoot, slightly cool even in September. A kitchen corner with the honest wear of actual use. Nothing staged, nothing trying too hard.

I dumped my bags with the ceremonial grace of a collapsing deckchair and made straight for that balcony. The view was not dramatic, not one of those postcard panoramas that make you gasp. It was better than that. A glimpse of terracotta rooftops tumbling down toward the sea, a slice of blue so particular to this coast that I am convinced the Mediterranean keeps a separate palette just for Liguria. Some distant washing flapped on a line. A cat regarded me with the profound indifference cats reserve for tourists.

I stood there for longer than I care to admit, still in my motorway clothes, still faintly coconut-scented, and felt something shift. The journey had been long and ridiculous and I had arrived slightly diminished, slightly ridiculous myself. But here was this ordinary miracle: a quiet spot, a warm evening, the promise of a village below where someone was probably already thinking about dinner.

I had not even unpacked. I had not found the nearest bar, though I could hear one somewhere, laughter carrying on that same salt breeze. I had not investigated the beach, though I could smell it. I simply stood, slightly sticky, profoundly grateful, and let the stillness do its work.

The keys had been there all along. So, it turned out, had I.