The thing about driving through Puglia in late June is that you genuinely believe you have prepared for the heat. I had packed three hats, two of which I immediately lost to the same gust of wind at a service station near Bari. The second one went tumbling across the forecourt like a runaway frisbee, and I chased it with the desperate energy of a man who had already surrendered the first. A nonno filling his Fiat watched the whole thing with the kind of amused pity usually reserved for toddlers and very lost tourists.

By the time I reached Carovigno, I was down to one hat, zero dignity, and a rental car that smelled strongly of the almond biscuits I had crushed during the chase. The property sat just outside the town itself, down one of those narrow lanes that make you question every life choice that led to hiring a vehicle wider than a bicycle. I scraped the wing mirror on an olive tree within thirty seconds of turning in, which I decided to treat as a sort of rustic baptism.

The house was one of those whitewashed Puglian places that look almost aggressively charming in photographs and somehow even better in person. Thick stone walls, a small pool that caught the afternoon light, and the kind of silence that makes you aware of how loud your own breathing has become. I dumped my bags, found a beer in the fridge left by some previous saint of a guest, and stood in the courtyard feeling very pleased with myself. This was it. Coastal walking, early starts, that particular joy of moving through landscape with nothing but time and reasonably sturdy boots.

I had plans. Detailed plans. I was going to hike the coastal path toward Torre Santa Sabina, then loop back through the olive groves. I had read about it online, measured the distance, even noted where I might stop for a mid-morning coffee. The weather forecast had said warm and sunny, which in my British brain translated to perhaps needing to roll up my sleeves by eleven.

I set off at six the next morning, already sweating in a way that felt personal and unfair. The path from the coast near Carovigno starts beautifully, threading between low stone walls and sudden views of the Adriatic that make you stop and just stare like the tourist you absolutely are. I walked for perhaps forty minutes, feeling smug about my early start, before the temperature climbed from warm to something approaching interrogation.

By eight, I had finished my water. By eight-thirty, I was hiding in the thin shadow of a maritime pine, watching my carefully planned route shimmer in heat haze. The path ahead crossed open scrubland with no cover whatsoever, and I found myself doing that pathetic calculation of whether continuing counted as admirable determination or straightforward stupidity. I thought of the nonno at the service station, his expression of gentle judgment.

I turned back. There is a particular flavour of humility in abandoning a walk because the weather has defeated you, especially when you have been boasting to friends about your hiking intentions. I trudged back to the house, arrived looking like I had swum there rather than walked, and spent the next two hours floating in the pool with the floaty detachment of someone who may have been slightly heat-delirious.

The weather broke that evening, as Puglia weather does, with a storm that came off the sea in about twelve minutes flat. I sat on the covered terrace and watched lightning sketch the coastline, feeling the temperature drop twenty degrees and my own foolishness settle into something more like acceptance.

For the rest of the week, I walked early and I walked late. I learned the rhythm of the place, the way locals move through the hot hours with the patience of people who have never expected the climate to accommodate them. I found shorter loops near the house, paths through olive groves where the trees themselves seemed to generate shade. I walked to the coast at dusk, when the stone of the old torre turned pink and the heat finally released its grip.

On my last morning, I tried the original route again, starting before dawn with two litres of water and absolutely no pride whatsoever. The same path, the same views, but this time the air held that particular coolness that makes movement possible, even joyful. I reached the point where I had turned back, kept going, and found the little cove I had read about, empty except for a fisherman who nodded at me with what I chose to interpret as respect.

I sat there for an hour, watching the sun climb and the heat build, then walked back slowly, already planning my escape before the worst of it. Some lessons, it turns out, take longer to learn than others, and some require losing two hats and a fair chunk of self-image before they stick.