I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I found myself reversing down a narrow lane near Stresa with a hire car the size of a small boat and a local cyclist waving his arms at me like I had personally offended his entire family. The sat nav had cheerfully announced we had arrived at our destination while we were clearly parked outside someone's garage, surrounded by olive trees and the faint smell of someone's lunch cooking. My partner sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression of British restraint that says, "I will not comment now, but this will be brought up later over a drink."

Twenty minutes, one slightly teary phone call to the property manager, and a very patient neighbour later, we finally found the actual entrance. And I must say, the moment we stepped out of the car, the whole comedy of errors melted away like gelato in July. There before us was Lake Maggiore, glittering and vast, with the Borromean Islands sitting in the middle distance like someone had arranged them just for our benefit. The villa itself was one of those elegant old Italian numbers, all shuttered windows and terracotta, with a garden that had clearly been loved into submission over many years.

Our first afternoon became an exercise in purposeful laziness. We dragged ourselves no further than the terrace, where a slightly wobbly table and two chairs waited in the sunshine. I had brought three books, which now seems optimistic given that I managed perhaps six pages in as many hours. There is something about that particular quality of northern Italian light that makes reading feel almost rude, as if you should be looking up and around instead, watching the lake change colour from turquoise to silver to something approaching gold as the afternoon wore on. A bottle of local Gavi, bought from a shop whose owner spoke no English and my Italian stretched to "grazie" and hopeful pointing, sat between us getting warm. We did not care.

The following days established a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as a rhythm at all. Mornings began with coffee on that same terrace, watching the lake mist burn off while the town below woke up. Stresa itself is small enough to wander without purpose, which suited us perfectly. We would potter down for bread and cheese, perhaps sit in the piazza with an espresso that cost less than a bottle of water back home, then retreat before the afternoon heat built too fiercely. Some days we did not even manage the potter. Some days we simply moved from terrace to garden to the slightly shadier spot by the bougainvillea, like lizards seeking the perfect temperature.

I had imagined myself hiking, perhaps taking the cable car up Monte Mottarone for the views. I packed walking boots. They remained in the case, a quiet accusation every time I opened it for a fresh book. The cable car ran without us. We watched it from below, tiny cabins ascending into the haze, and felt no particular regret. There is a peculiar liberation in deciding that you will not do the thing, that the view from the terrace is view enough, that another chapter and another hour of warmth is accomplishment sufficient for any holiday.

On our last evening, we finally walked the short distance to the lakeside proper, joining the passeggiata of locals and visitors strolling as the light faded. An old man fed swans near the jetty. Children shrieked at the water's edge. We ate gelato and watched the islands turn purple against the darkening sky, and I thought about how I had stressed so about arriving, about directions and plans and whether we were making proper use of our time. The cyclist, if he saw us, made no sign of recognition. I like to think he would have approved of how little we had done, how thoroughly we had slowed ourselves into something approaching the local pace of things. Some holidays you remember for what you saw. This one, I suspect, I will remember for how little I moved, and how content I felt doing it.