I should have known the satnav was up to no good when it tried to send me through what looked like someone's vineyard. There I was, bumping along a gravel track in my hire car, convinced I was having a proper Italian adventure, only to find myself face to face with a very unimpressed-looking goat and a farmer who gestured wildly that I was definitely not on the road to Monferrato. Three-point turn in dust, much waving of hands, and twenty minutes of muttering later, I finally found the proper lane leading up to the property.

The first thing that struck me was the silence. Proper, heavy, wine-country silence, broken only by the buzz of cicadas and the distant clank of someone doing something agricultural. I had arrived in the late afternoon heat of early September, that particular Piedmont warmth that makes you move slower and think about cold drinks. The stone farmhouse sat there looking terribly pleased with itself, all terracotta roof and faded shutters, with a view across rolling hills that made my slightly sweaty, satnav-flustered self feel rather small and lucky.

I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of someone who had been in a car for far too long and immediately set off to explore on foot. This was meant to be a walking holiday after all, and I was determined to make the most of the late summer weather. The owner had mentioned a path through the vines that led towards a ridge with views towards the Alps on a clear day, and I had packed my boots with the optimism of someone who does not fully understand Italian humidity.

The walk started beautifully. The vines were heavy with grapes, the air smelled of warm earth and something faintly herbal, and I felt profoundly smug about my life choices. I had planned a grand circular route, maybe six miles, ending with a triumphant return for aperitivo hour. The weather forecast had promised sunshine and twenty-six degrees, which sounded perfect in a British sort of way.

Then the weather happened, as weather does when you have made plans.

The first sign was the wind picking up, sending dust devils spinning between the vine rows. The sky to the west, which had been a blameless blue, developed a bruised-looking edge. I checked my phone hopefully, as if the forecast might have updated itself in the last ten minutes to include "sudden dramatic thunderstorm." It had not.

I am not a complete idiot in the outdoors, but I will admit to a certain stubbornness. The ridge was only another mile. I could make the ridge. I would be fine.

Reader, I was not fine.

The rain started as fat, warm drops that felt almost pleasant, then escalated with alarming speed into something that can only be described as biblical. I found myself crouched under a rather scrawny olive tree, miles from anywhere, wearing a rain jacket that had cost fifteen pounds and performed accordingly. Water ran down my neck. My wonderful walking boots became wonderful walking buckets.

The thunder rolled across the hills with the kind of theatrical timing that made me wonder if Italy was showing off.

I squelched back eventually, taking a shortcut through more vines that I suspect were not strictly public footpath, arriving at the farmhouse looking like a creature emerging from a swamp. The owner, a splendid woman called Carla, took one look at me and wordlessly handed me a towel and a glass of local Barbera. I stood there on her terrace, dripping onto the stone, and drank it with the gratitude of someone who has learned several valuable lessons about hubris and meteorology.

The storm passed, as storms do, leaving the air washed clean and the hills looking impossibly green in the evening light. I changed into dry clothes and walked out again, much more cautiously, just to the edge of the property. The sunset was ridiculous, all apricots and roses, and somewhere a dog barked in that lazy Mediterranean way.

I thought about my grand hiking plans, my carefully mapped routes along ridges and through woodland. They would keep for another day, when I had checked the forecast more carefully and perhaps invested in better waterproofing. For now, there was something rather perfect about this smaller adventure, this unexpected surrender to the weather and the wine and the slow pace of a place that has seen countless visitors arrive with plans and depart with something more valuable.

Tomorrow, I told myself, I would walk properly. The forecast looked stable. I would set out early, before the heat built, and find that ridge with the Alpine view. But I would also pack my umbrella, and perhaps leave the satnav behind.