I have never been so pleased to see a set of traffic lights as I was at 2am on the road into Porto Cesareo. Twelve hours after leaving Gatwick, our hire car was making a noise like a washing machine full of spoons, my partner was asleep with her mouth open in a way that can only be described as committed, and our youngest had been asking "are we there yet" since somewhere north of Rome. The mishap, though, was entirely my fault. In my exhaustion I had managed to set the sat nav to Porto Cesareo in the wrong province, and we had spent the last forty-five minutes circling a petrol station near Taranto while I stubbornly insisted we were "nearly there." When I finally admitted defeat and let my partner take the phone, she found our actual destination in roughly twelve seconds. I have not lived it down.

The property we had booked was one of those whitewashed cottage-style places that Puglia does so well, tucked down a lane just back from the coast. We arrived properly at half past two, stumbled out of the car into warm air that smelled of salt and something herbal I could not identify, and immediately discovered that I had also forgotten to pack any of the door codes. Cue a mildly frantic phone call to the keyholder, who answered with the resigned patience of someone who has dealt with many British families at unsociable hours. He arrived ten minutes later, bless him, in slippers and what I can only describe as an extremely justified expression.

Stepping inside for the first time, even in my delirious state, I felt that lovely shift that happens when a place just fits. Terracotta floors, simple wooden furniture, a kitchen that looked like it had actually been cooked in rather than staged for a photograph. The sort of holiday let where you can tell the owners use it themselves, where the cupboards hold mismatched glasses and a slightly terrifying number of coffee-making devices. My partner immediately opened every door looking for the outdoor space, which turned out to be a small courtyard with a barbecue, a lemon tree in a pot, and a plastic table where someone had left a half-finished game of cards. We stood there in our travelling clothes, too tired to unpack, and listened to the distant sound of the sea. It was properly warm, that soft Puglian warmth that wraps around you rather than hits you. The children, who had been fractious and bickering for hours, went suspiciously quiet. I found them ten minutes later asleep on the sofa together, which never happens at home.

The next morning I woke before everyone else, slightly disoriented by proper darkness and the absence of traffic noise. I made coffee in a moka pot I had not used since university, got it slightly wrong, and drank it anyway in the courtyard while the lemon tree did its thing in the early sun. A cat appeared from nowhere, judged me silently, and left. I felt absurdly content. The mishaps of the journey already felt like someone else's story, or at least like material I would dine out on later.

We did not do much that first day, which was rather the point. A slow walk to a nearby beach, the children collecting shells with the serious concentration they bring to such tasks. Lunch from a bakery in the town, where I attempted my rusty Italian and was met with kindness and a slightly better accent than I deserved. Back to the cottage for the afternoon, for reading and dozing and the particular pleasure of a holiday kitchen where nothing is your responsibility to fix. My partner and I cooked together that evening, slightly too much food, eaten at the plastic table while the children told rambling stories and the lemon tree cast shadows in the lamplight. I thought about how rarely we eat like this at home, without the pull of phones and schedules, and made one of those silent resolutions that rarely survive the return to normal life. Still, I meant it in the moment.

That is the thing about a place like this, I think. It does not shout for your attention. It simply gives you room to remember what you actually like about being together.