I have never been very good at reading maps, which is a polite way of saying I am absolutely hopeless at them. So when my partner handed me the directions to our holiday flat in Varazze and told me to navigate, I should have seen the disaster coming. We had driven down from Genoa airport along the winding Ligurian coast, the sea glittering to our left like someone had spilt a tin of sequins, and I was feeling rather pleased with myself. Too pleased, as it turned out.

The mishap was small but deeply embarrassing. I confidently directed us down a narrow lane that I insisted was a shortcut, only to find ourselves in someone's courtyard, nose to nose with a very unimpressed nonna who was hanging out her smalls. She waved her wooden spoon at us with what I can only describe as righteous indignation, and we had to reverse all the way back up the lane while she watched, arms folded, presumably wondering what sort of idiot tourists had invaded her Tuesday morning. My partner said nothing. That was worse than shouting.

By the time we actually found the place, a modest block tucked into the hillside above Varazze proper, I was ready to abandon the car and walk the rest of my life. But then I stepped out onto the little terrace, and something shifted. The view was not the obvious postcard shot. No, this was better somehow. A tangle of terracotta rooftops falling away, the odd cypress poking up like an exclamation mark, and beyond it all the sea proper, not the tourist-facing beach but the working coast with its fishing boats and faded paint.

We decided to get deliberately lost that first evening, which is how I prefer to explore anywhere. The main promenade in Varazze is perfectly pleasant, all palm trees and gelato shops, but we turned inland at the first opportunity, up stone steps that seemed to lead nowhere in particular. That is the trick in Liguria. The obvious path takes you to the obvious place. The crumbling staircase between two houses, the one that looks private and probably is, that takes you somewhere else entirely.

We found a tiny piazza with a fountain that had seen better days and a bar that had not. The barman, who introduced himself as Franco within thirty seconds, poured us something local and pale that tasted of herbs neither of us could identify. He told us about a path that started behind the church, one that was not in any guidebook because it was technically a drainage route for the olive terraces above town. We went the next morning, naturally.

Getting lost on that path was the highlight of the whole trip. We missed a turn, or the turn missed us, and we ended up in a grove of ancient olive trees that felt like a cathedral. The trunks were twisted into impossible shapes, centuries of wind and stubbornness written into every gnarl. A cat appeared from nowhere and led us, I swear deliberately, to a viewpoint where we could see all the way to Savona in one direction and nothing but green hillside in the other. We sat on a flat rock and ate bread and cheese like people in films do, except we were sweating and slightly breathless and I had a blister forming. It was perfect.

The flat itself became a base for more of this happy wandering. Varazze's old town rewarded our aimless feet repeatedly. A bakery we stumbled into on our third morning, down an alley that smelled of drying laundry and someone's lunch cooking, produced the most extraordinary focaccia I have ever tasted. The woman who ran it spoke no English and my Italian extends to ordering coffee and apologising, but she understood my appreciative noises well enough. She wrapped an extra piece in paper and pressed it on me with a look that said she knew exactly what I needed.

I think what I loved most was the sense that none of these moments were designed for us. They were just there, going about their business, and we happened to blunder into them. The Ligurian coast is famous for its pretty ports and its celebrity visitors, but up in the hills behind Varazze, life continues much as it must have done for generations. Terraces carved into impossible slopes, small holdings where people grow what they need, corners of shade where old men gather to complain about football and politics in voices that carry down the valley.

On our last day, I got lost again on purpose. I followed a stream bed until it became impassable, then sat on a stone and watched a lizard watching me. I thought about my terrible navigation and my partner's patient silence and the nonna with her wooden spoon. I thought about how often I try to plan experiences, to optimise them, to make sure I am getting the best possible version of something. And I thought about how the best moments of this holiday had all come from getting it wrong, from taking the path that went nowhere, from trusting that wrong turns often lead somewhere better than the right ones.

I walked back eventually, found the flat without incident for once, and packed my bag with sand still in my shoes and that extra piece of focaccia wrapped in my jacket pocket. Some holidays you come back from with photographs of famous sights. I came back with a blister, a vague recipe for herb-infused wine, and the certain knowledge that I am still hopeless with maps, and that this is probably for the best.