I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and my trip to Sant'Agata Feltria did not disappoint. There I was, trundling down the autostrada in my hire car, feeling terribly pleased with myself for navigating Rome's ring road without sobbing, when my sat nav decided to stage a small rebellion. Instead of the sensible route through Rimini, it sent me up what I can only describe as a goat track with delusions of grandeur. I clung to the steering wheel, muttering apologies to the clutch, while a local in a Fiat Panda the size of a shoebox overtook me with the casual confidence of a man who could drive this road blindfolded. I arrived at the property in IEC212 with slightly wobbly knees and a newfound respect for Italian engineering, both automotive and intestinal.

The house itself sits perched on the edge of this medieval hill town like a contented cat in a sunbeam. My first thought, once I had stopped gripping the doorframe, was how gloriously wrong my expectations had been. I had pictured a cramped holiday let with plastic chairs and that particular smell of other people's cooking. Instead, I found stone walls thick enough to withstand a siege, wooden beams that had probably witnessed arguments about unification, and a terrace that dropped away to reveal the most absurdly beautiful view of the Marecchia valley. I stood there with my suitcase still in hand, mouth slightly open, looking every inch the tourist I had promised myself I would not become.

I had planned, of course. I am a planner. I had printed maps, highlighted walking routes, bookmarked restaurants in nearby Pennabilli. The first morning, full of purpose and slightly too much espresso, I set off to find the famous truffle museum that had featured so prominently in my research. I took a wrong turning within approximately four minutes. The streets of Sant'Agata Feltria do not run parallel or perpendicular; they wander, they double back, they seem to consult with one another before allowing you passage. I found myself in a tiny piazza with a fountain that appeared on no map I possessed, watched by an elderly gentleman who offered no directions but a great deal of silent judgment.

And here is the thing I had forgotten about getting lost: it requires surrender. I stopped fighting. I followed my feet down a passageway so narrow I could touch both walls, emerged onto a path that clung to the hillside like a nervous child, and stumbled upon a small chapel with its door hanging open. Inside, the air smelled of wax and centuries. No ticket office, no audio guide, no other visitors. Just me and some frankly alarming frescoes of martyrdom that suggested the artist had perhaps needed to get out more. I sat on the step afterwards, eating the bread and pecorino I had bought from a shop whose location I could never find again, and felt something shift. The planner in me loosened her grip.

That afternoon, I got lost again on purpose. I drove down a road that grew progressively more suspicious of my intentions, until it deposited me at a farmhouse where a woman was making cheese in her kitchen. She spoke no English, I speak Italian like a concussed toddler, and yet somehow I left with a wheel of formaggio di fossa and an invitation to return. I never did find my way back, which seems exactly right.

The days that followed blurred into a happy rhythm of accidental discovery. A swimming hole in the Marecchia river, found by following the sound of teenagers shouting. A bakery in a village I cannot name, where the owner slipped me a still-warm ciambella because I looked, in his words, "confused but polite." A path through oak woods that I took because the proper trail was closed, leading to a ruined tower where wild boar had clearly been holding committee meetings.

Each evening, I returned to that terrace with my unreliable purchases and increasingly reliable sense of contentment. The view never changed, yet I never tired of it. I watched the light move across the valley, turning the fields from gold to green to something approaching violet, and I understood something I had been too busy to notice before. The holiday I had planned would have been fine. The holiday I accidentally had was something else entirely.

On my final morning, I tried to find that chapel again. I failed, naturally. But I found another, smaller one, and a garden where someone had left out figs to dry on a stone wall, and a cat who followed me for twenty minutes before losing interest in my inadequacy as a companion. I left Sant'Agata Feltria with cheese in my luggage, dust on my boots, and the certain knowledge that my sat nav had known exactly what it was doing all along.