By the time we finally spotted the turning for S.C. Ponte Interrotto, Lot 14, I'd already put the hire car into a hedge twice, once reversing for a tractor and once because I'd mistaken an olive tree for a driveway. Three flights, a two-hour queue at Bari airport, and forty minutes of increasingly narrow Puglian lanes had reduced my driving confidence to that of a seventeen-year-old on their first lesson. My partner sat beside me, clutching an Aperol spritz can from the airport shop, wearing the fixed expression of someone who'd chosen this life voluntarily.

The property sits near the Itria Valley, surrounded by those absurdly picturesque dry stone walls that look like they've been there since before Christ, which they probably have. We'd booked a converted trullo complex, one of those conical-roofed beauties that litter the Puglian countryside like stone mushrooms. The NOVASOL photos had shown whitewashed walls, a private pool, and what the listing optimistically called "rustic charm." I was prepared for rustic. I was prepared for charm. I was not prepared for the sat nav giving up entirely and suggesting we drive into a field of donkeys.

The mishap, when it came, was gloriously stupid. I'd stopped to check the map, left the car in neutral on what I thought was flat ground, and stepped out to photograph a particularly handsome trullo roof. The car rolled. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, it rolled backwards towards a drainage ditch. I sprinted alongside it, yanked open the door, and managed to halt the thing with my knee wedged against the seat. My partner filmed the entire incident without comment. We watched it later over wine. She'd added a soundtrack.

The key safe at Lot 14 required the code, my reading glasses, and eventually a phone torch because Italian key safes apparently operate on principles of medieval engineering. But then the gate creaked open, and there it was: proper Puglia, proper peace. The trullo sat under its grey limestone cone like a hobbit house designed by someone with excellent taste. A small pool glinted in the afternoon sun. Lemon trees in terracotta pots flanked the entrance. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked with the lazy enthusiasm of a creature who'd never known urgency.

Inside smelled of stone and dried lavender, that particular coolness you only get in thick-walled buildings that have survived centuries of Apulian heat. The kitchen was compact, tiled in yellows and blues, with a coffee maker that looked like it could launch rockets. I immediately made a mess of it, of course, grinding beans too fine and producing something that resembled mud more than espresso. My partner took over. Some things are best left to people with patience and functioning spatial awareness.

We dumped bags on terracotta floors, opened every shutter, and stood in the garden watching swallows dart between the trullo roof and the neighbouring almond trees. The silence wasn't empty; it was full of insects and distant tractors and that particular quality of southern Italian air that makes you aware you've travelled very far from everything familiar.

I felt it then, that specific holiday sensation of minor triumph mixed with exhaustion. We'd arrived. We'd nearly lost the car to a ditch. I'd embarrassed myself with a coffee machine. And now we had a week of this: slow mornings, poolside reading, perhaps learning to drive properly on lanes built for donkeys rather than Renault Clios. The sun dropped towards the stone walls, turning everything golden, and I thought how extraordinary it is that you can make such a hash of getting somewhere and still end up exactly where you wanted to be.