I have never been a natural navigator, which is why my decision to drive to a remote stone house in Molise without a functioning sat nav was, in hindsight, a triumph of optimism over experience. The thing died just past Cassino, leaving me with a printed map that I had grabbed from a service station in such haste that I failed to notice it was a regional overview from 1987. I spent twenty minutes circling a roundabout near Isernia convinced I was being artful, only to discover I had completed three full laps of the same junction while a man in a Fiat Panda watched with the patient amusement of someone who had seen this before.

The road to Filignano narrowed with what I can only describe as theatrical malice. Tarmac became track, track became something I would hesitate to call gravel, and then I took a wrong turn that deposited me in a hamlet so small it did not appear to believe in itself. An elderly gentleman emerged from a doorway, observed my predicament, and directed me with gestures so expansive and contradictory that I set off more confused than before. I thanked him profusely, of course. One does.

I found the house eventually by following a cat. This is not a strategy I would recommend generally, but this particular cat seemed to possess local knowledge, pausing at forks in the path with an air of consultation before proceeding. We arrived together, the cat and I, at a heavy wooden door set into honey-coloured stone, and I chose to interpret this as destiny rather than coincidence.

The owner had left the key beneath a terracotta pot, which I knocked over in my eagerness, sending it rolling down a slope with a clatter that must have carried to the next valley. I stood frozen, half-expecting an outraged neighbour, but Molise does not really do outraged neighbours. It does silence, and birdsong, and the distant clank of someone doing something agricultural without urgency.

The interior revealed itself in stages. A kitchen with a fireplace large enough to stand in, clearly designed for chestnuts and contemplation. Bedrooms with ceilings of exposed beams that looked hand-shaped, probably because they were. I opened shutters to a view of mountains that seemed almost embarrassed by their own beauty, as if caught without proper preparation.

I had intended to unpack methodically, to establish order before exploring. Instead I wandered outside with a single bag still unpacked, following what I assumed was a path but which quickly became speculative. The land around Filignano does not announce its routes. It offers suggestions, hints, possibilities. I took one that led through olive trees to a spring I had not known existed, water emerging from stone with a sound like quiet conversation.

That evening I attempted to cook with ingredients from a village shop I had passed three times before recognising it as a shop. The proprietor, a woman whose patience with my Italian bordered on the maternal, sold me local pecorino and sausages that I later grilled badly over a fire I built with excessive newspaper and insufficient skill. The smoke followed me around the terrace like a comment on my technique.

Sitting there, eating imperfect food in imperfect light, I understood something I had been avoiding. I am not someone who finds things easily. I am someone who finds things by mistake, by persistence, by following cats. The house, the spring, the shop that camouflaged itself as someone's front room - these were not discoveries but accidents I had been open enough to have.

The sat nav never recovered. I did not miss it.