I have to admit, I got myself into a right state before we even reached Albagnano di Bee. There I was, sat in the passenger seat, absolutely convinced I'd packed my walking boots. Proper ones, with the ankle support and everything. We'd driven all the way from Turin airport, winding through those gorgeous Piedmontese hills, and I was already picturing myself striding along like some seasoned Alpine trekker. It was only when we pulled into the village that I realised I'd brought two left boots. Not matching left and right. Two actual left boots. My partner tried not to laugh, failed spectacularly, and then very generously offered me his ancient trainers, which smelled faintly of cheese and regret.

The house itself, this lovely stone villa perched above Lake Maggiore, could not have been more welcoming if it had opened its wooden shutters and offered us a cup of tea. We dumped our bags and immediately stepped onto the terrace, and honestly, the view stopped me mid-moan about my footwear situation. The lake glittered below like someone had scattered broken glass across blue silk, and the mountains rose up all around us, hazy and inviting. The air smelled of pine and something warm and herbal that I later learned was wild thyme growing in the cracks of the old walls.

Our plan, hatched over many excited texts back in rainy Manchester, had been to tackle some serious coastal walking. The Sentiero di Gandria, that famous lakeside path, was top of my list. I'd read about it obsessively: dramatic cliffs, tiny fishing villages, the works. But Piedmont in late June had other ideas. The morning after our arrival, we woke to a heat that felt almost personal in its intensity, like someone had opened an oven door directly onto our bedroom. By nine o'clock, the stone terrace was too hot to stand on barefoot. By ten, my phone was bleating heat warnings at me with genuine concern.

So we adapted, because that's what you do when the weather laughs at your carefully printed itinerary. Instead of the ambitious lakeside hike, we wandered down through Bee itself, a village so pretty it almost looks deliberately arranged. Narrow lanes, flower boxes tumbling with geraniums, old men sitting in patches of shade playing cards with the intensity of chess grandmasters. We found a tiny bar where the owner made us granita that was essentially frozen coffee heaven, and we sat there for an hour watching village life move at its own unhurried pace.

The afternoon brought merciful cloud cover, and we managed a gentler walk along the higher paths above the house, through terraced gardens and past abandoned stone cottages being slowly reclaimed by fig trees and brambles. My borrowed trainers held up, though I did slip once on a dusty descent and performed an involuntary comedy routine that a passing lizard seemed to judge quite harshly.

That evening, back on the terrace with cold beer and local salami, we watched a storm build over the lake. The heat had brewed something dramatic, and lightning flickered between the mountains while we stayed dry and smug in our hilltop perch. My two left boots sat in the corner of the room like a silent accusation, but I found I didn't much care. Sometimes the wrong footwear and the wrong weather conspire to give you exactly the right kind of day.