I have never been so pleased to see a set of keys in a plastic box in my entire life. Twelve hours, two trains, one hire car that smelled strongly of regret and air freshener, and a sat-nav that insisted Sestri Levante was somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We arrived at the property in darkness, starving, and I promptly walked straight into a potted lemon tree that had done absolutely nothing to deserve me.

The mishap was this: somewhere between Genoa and our final approach, I had convinced myself that the property code was 1234. It was not 1234. It was not even close to 1234. After three increasingly desperate attempts, my partner gently removed the booking confirmation from my back pocket, where I had apparently stuffed it eleven hours previously alongside a melted Twix and a parking ticket from Turin. I stood there in the gravel driveway, rubbing my shin and my ego in equal measure, while he punched in the actual numbers and the little box sprang open with what I can only describe as audible relief.

The property itself sat on a hillside terrace, and even in the dark you could sense the view waiting to announce itself. We fumbled with the shutters, found the kitchen light, and made the executive decision that dinner would be bread, cheese, and whatever that jar of something green was that the previous guests had left behind. The sofa was firm in that particular way Italian sofas often are, as if to remind you that you are on holiday, not hibernating. I fell asleep with my shoes still on and woke at dawn to the sound of a neighbour singing something operatic while hanging out washing.

That first morning was when Sestri Levante properly introduced itself. I shuffled onto the terrace with coffee made in a moka pot I had assembled incorrectly twice, and there it was: the Bay of Silence below, the town's painted buildings climbing the hillside, and the Ligurian Sea doing that impossible blue thing that makes you suspect colour correction in real life. The terrace had a small table, some folding chairs with the slight rust of genuine use, and a grapevine that cast dappled shadows across everything. I stood there in yesterday's clothes, holding my third attempt at coffee, and felt something in my shoulders actually release.

The walk down to the bay took perhaps fifteen minutes, though our first attempt took forty because I kept stopping to photograph doorways and being loudly corrected on my pronunciation of "buongiorno" by a man walking three cats. The town revealed itself in layers: the pastel buildings, the fishing boats pulled up on the small beach, the sudden narrow streets that turn into staircases without warning. We bought focaccia from a bakery where the woman seemed genuinely surprised anyone would want just one piece, and ate it sitting on the harbour wall with our legs dangling like children.

By late afternoon we had established our ritual without even discussing it. Morning coffee on the terrace, slow descent to the town, some vague intention of swimming that we kept postponing because the people-watching was too absorbing, then the climb back up with provisions for the evening. The property's kitchen was compact enough that we kept bumping into each other, which felt less like inconvenience and more like the point of the whole exercise.

That first evening, I finally unpacked properly and discovered I had brought four pairs of shoes I would not wear, seventeen socks, and no swimming trunks. We sat on the terrace with local wine, watching the town lights come on across the bay, and I admitted that my navigation of the entire trip had been approximately as successful as my navigation of the key box. My partner raised his glass to that, and we listened to someone somewhere practicing violin rather badly, and I thought that perhaps being slightly incompetent in a beautiful place was its own particular kind of competence.