I have never been so happy to see a gravel driveway in all my life. Six hours after leaving Ancona Airport, two wrong turns past a field of very judgemental sheep, and one spectacular argument with a sat nav that insisted Valfornace was "in 200 metres" for a solid twenty minutes, we finally crunched to a halt outside what I can only describe as a peach-coloured slice of heaven.

The mishap, you ask? Oh, that came earlier. Somewhere near Sarnano, convinced I was being terribly clever taking the scenic route, I managed to wedge our hire car between two olive trees on a lane clearly designed for donkeys in a previous century. The donkeys, I noted, were nowhere to be seen. Probably off somewhere sensible, using main roads. It took a lovely old chap in a Fiat Panda the size of a shoebox to reverse-guide me out, all while his wife sat placidly eating what looked like an entire panettone and offering absolutely no commentary whatsoever. I have never felt more British in my life.

But back to the driveway. The villa rose up before us, that warm apricot plaster catching the late afternoon light, with terracotta roof tiles that looked like they had been baking in the Marche sunshine since before I was born. My partner unfolded himself from the passenger seat with the grim determination of a man who had spent three hours pretending my navigation was "fine, honestly, just fine." We stood there in silence, listening to nothing but cicadas and the distant clank of someone else's happy barbecue, and I felt something in my shoulders actually drop.

The key was in a lockbox, which felt thrillingly illicit, and the moment we stepped inside, the cool of thick stone walls wrapped around us like a promise. The kitchen smelled faintly of rosemary and old wood. I opened the French doors to the terrace and there it was: the pool, glinting wickedly, surrounded by lavender bushes that hummed with bees too busy to bother with us. Beyond, the hills rolled away in shades of green and gold that made me wonder why I had spent the last decade thinking a garden in Croydon constituted countryside.

We did very little that first evening. Unpacked with the lethargy of people who had already decided unpacking could wait. Sat by the pool with wine from the Coop in Sarnano, which I now consider the finest wine shop in Christendom purely because it is five minutes away and sells excellent pecorino. Watched the swallows dive and the sky turn that particular violet-pink that seems to happen more generously in Italy than anywhere else I have been.

The next morning, I woke to heat already pressing against the shutters and the realisation that I had no intention of doing anything more strenuous than choosing which sun lounger to claim. This, I have decided, is the genius of a place like Valfornace. It does not demand you become a better, more energetic version of yourself. It offers you a book, a pool, and the absolute certainty that a spritz will materialise at approximately six o'clock without you having to think about it.

We walked to the village once, perhaps a mile through lanes shaded by walnut trees, to buy bread that was still warm and tomatoes that actually tasted of something. That was our expedition. Our great adventure. The rest was swimming until our fingers wrinkled, reading three pages and dozing off, arguing gently about whether the lizard on the wall was the same lizard from yesterday. I maintain it was; my partner maintains I have formed an unhealthy attachment.

On our last evening, I found myself on the terrace well after dark, the pool lit from below like a turquoise secret, drinking something local and slightly fizzy, watching the fireflies appear in the hedgerow like someone had scattered green stars. I thought about the olive trees, the Fiat Panda, the panettone. I thought about how I had arrived desperate to fill every day with doing, seeing, achieving, and how this place had slowly, stubbornly, taught me the profound joy of not bothering.

I have brought home a slight sunburn, a questionable amount of pecorino, and the certain knowledge that I will be back, probably still taking wrong turns, definitely still arguing with sat navs, but ready once more to do absolutely nothing at all in the most beautiful possible way.