I have never been so relieved to see a sign for Urbania in my entire life, and that includes the time I got lost in IKEA trying to find the exit. Twelve hours of driving from the Eurotunnel, two wrong turns around Bologna, and one spectacular argument with a sat nav that insisted on pronouncing every Italian place name as if it were having a small stroke. By the time we crawled up the winding road into the hills of northern Marche, my partner and I had developed the kind of tense silence that only a proper holiday can eventually cure.

The mishap, because there is always one, happened about twenty minutes from the property. I had been boasting for at least an hour about my superior navigation skills, waving my phone about like a compass, when I confidently directed us down what I swore was a shortcut. It was a farm track. A very authentic, very steep farm track that ended in a locked gate and a rather judgmental goat. Reversing a hire car uphill in loose gravel while a goat watched is not an experience I wish to repeat. My partner found this hilarious. I found it less so, though I laughed later, once we were safely back on tarmac and I could pretend I had meant to show us the scenic route all along.

Urbania itself appeared suddenly, as these hill towns do, rising from the green folds of the countryside like something from a painting you would buy in a charity shop and unexpectedly treasure. The property sat just outside the old town walls, close enough to walk in for bread and coffee, far enough to feel properly rural. A stone house, properly old without being precious about it, with that particular faded terracotta glow that everything seems to have in this part of Italy. I have learned not to trust holiday photos too much, but pulling into the gravelled parking area, I felt the rare sensation of a place looking better than advertised.

The key was where the owner said it would be, in a small metal box with a combination that actually worked on the third attempt. The door opened with that satisfying weight that old doors have, not creaky but substantial, and we stepped into coolness and the smell of stone and something faintly lemony from the cleaning. I always feel slightly fraudulent in beautiful places for the first few minutes, as if someone will appear to explain there has been a terrible mistake and the proper guests are arriving shortly. No one did.

The kitchen was immediately promising, proper size, windows looking out towards the hills, none of that minimalist nonsense where you cannot actually cook. The sitting room had beams and a fireplace and furniture that looked lived-in rather than arranged. I ran my hand along the kitchen table, slightly uneven, probably decades old, and felt something shift in my chest. We had been travelling too long, working too hard, forgetting what it meant to simply stop in a place that asked nothing of you.

I unpacked badly, leaving half my clothes in the suitcase as if we might need to make a quick escape, while my partner investigated the garden. He returned with two glasses of wine he had found in the fridge, a welcome gift from the owner, and reported that there was a covered terrace, a barbecue, and a view that would do nicely for the next fortnight. We sat on the terrace as the light changed, drinking wine that tasted of somewhere specific, watching swallows dart about the rooftops of Urbania's old town above us.

The goat, I decided, had been worth it. The wrong turn, the tense silence, the twelve hours of motorway and anticipation. Sometimes you need to be thoroughly lost before arriving somewhere feels like properly coming home.