I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I found myself reversing down a narrow lane near Barchi while a very patient Italian farmer watched from his tractor, arms folded, probably wondering what sort of idiot tourist confuses left for right at the same junction twice. The sat nav had given up on me around Urbino, and my phone map seemed to think I was swimming in the Adriatic. By the time I spotted the stone walls and terracotta roof of the barchi, I was half an hour late, slightly sweaty, and enormously relieved.

The property sat among rolling hills that looked like someone had painted them too perfectly to be real. Olive groves, sunflower fields, and somewhere in the distance a line of cypress trees standing to attention. My host, a woman called Luisa with kind eyes and flour on her apron, simply laughed when I tried to apologise in broken Italian. She handed me a cold glass of something fizzy and local, waved away my embarrassment, and showed me through a heavy wooden door into a kitchen that smelled of rosemary and yesterday's baking.

That first afternoon, I did almost nothing. This was the point, I reminded myself. I had come to Marche specifically to stop achieving things. I dragged a sun lounger to the edge of the garden where the land fell away, opened a novel I had been carrying unread for six months, and promptly fell asleep instead. The kind of deep, guilty sleep that only happens in foreign sunshine, where you wake confused about what time it is and whether you have missed anything important. I had not. A gecko watched me from the wall with what I chose to interpret as solidarity rather than judgement.

The barchi itself was simple in the best way. Thick walls that kept the heat at bay, terracotta floors that felt deliciously cool under bare feet, windows with wooden shutters that squeaked satisfyingly. No television, which initially alarmed me, then liberated me. The wifi existed but only in one corner of the kitchen near the fridge, and even then it sulked. I stopped checking it after the first day.

My gentle explorations rarely took me far. There was a village bakery where I pointed at things hopefully each morning, a tiny bar where old men played cards and ignored me companionably, and a walking path through farmland that led to a view of the Metauro valley so lovely I sat on a stone for an hour watching hawks circle. I walked to a nearby vineyard for a tasting that turned into lunch, then into a slow wander back with bread and cheese for later. Everything took longer than planned. Everything was better for it.

I read three books that week, none of them demanding. I learned that doing very little requires practice. The first two days, I kept making lists of things I ought to see, places I should drive to. By day three, I had lost the lists somewhere and felt no urge to find them. I cooked simple meals with tomatoes that actually tasted of something, drank wine that cost less than a London coffee, and watched the light change across the hills each evening with the dedication usually reserved for important television.

On my final morning, I packed with the same unhurried rhythm the week had taught me. Luisa brought me coffee and refused payment for the extra night I had accidentally booked wrong. We communicated in gestures and smiles, which felt sufficient. I drove away slowly, not reversing once, already planning when I might return to do absolutely nothing again.