I should have known the Sat Nav was plotting against me the moment it sent us down a track that grew narrower with every metre, until we were essentially driving through someone's vineyard. My partner, ever the optimist, kept saying, "It must be a shortcut." It was not a shortcut. It was, however, how we discovered that Cuccaro Monferrato sits in a landscape so quietly spectacular that getting lost in it feels less like a mistake and more like an initiation.

We had booked a converted farmhouse through NOVASOL, the sort of place with exposed beams and a terrace that promises sundowners with actual sunsets. The journey from Turin had been straightforward enough until the final five miles, when technology abandoned us and instinct took over. Instinct, I should note, is not my strong suit. I once got lost in a supermarket car park.

The track deposited us at a fork with no signage, just two elderly men playing cards outside a shed that might have been a garage, a winery, or both. I wound down the window and attempted my best "scusi," which came out more apologetic than intended. They didn't look up from their game, but one extended an arm and pointed left without a word. I choose to believe this was local efficiency rather than mild disdain.

Left took us past a crumbling chapel I cannot find on any map, its door hanging open to reveal faded frescoes of saints who looked as surprised to see us as we were to find them. We stopped, obviously. The floor was dusty, the air smelled of old stone and something sweeter I couldn't place, and for a moment the silence was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat. My partner whispered that we should probably leave before we got arrested for trespassing. I whispered back that there didn't appear to be anyone to arrest us. This is the peculiar magic of the Monferrato hills: places exist in a state of beautiful neglect, neither fully abandoned nor actively maintained, simply persisting.

The farmhouse, when we finally found it, sat at the end of a gravel drive bordered by wild lavender. The key was under a terracotta pot, as promised, and the owner had left a bottle of local Grignolino with a note saying "for the journey" in English far better than my Italian. I poured two glasses and carried them to the terrace, where the view unravelled across vineyards and woodland in shades of green I didn't know existed. Somewhere below, a dog barked once and thought better of it.

That first evening, we walked without purpose, which is not something I do well. I am a planner, a list-maker, someone who researches restaurants before booking flights. But the paths around Cuccaro Monferrato resist planning. They wander between hazelnut groves and disappear into oak woods, emerging unexpectedly at viewpoints or the back gates of farms where chickens scatter at your approach. We found a bench carved from a single log, positioned to face west, with no indication of who had placed it there or why. We sat. The sun lowered itself towards the horizon with the unhurried confidence of something that has performed this routine for millennia.

I found myself thinking about the chapel, the card players, the unmarked bench. These were not attractions to be ticked off. They were simply there, available to whoever happened to stumble upon them, and stumbling felt like the entire point. I spend so much of my life trying not to get lost, optimised and efficient and slightly anxious, that I had forgotten the particular pleasure of not knowing exactly where I am.

The Grignolino helped, admittedly. It's a lighter red than the Nebbiolo the region is famous for, more approachable, less demanding of attention. We finished the bottle as the light faded and fireflies began their evening patrol of the garden. I couldn't have planned that if I'd tried.