I have never been so grateful for a wonky sat nav in my life. There we were, trundling through the olive groves of Puglia in our hire car, convinced we were lost beyond all hope, when the little lane opened up and there sat Turi - all creamy stone walls and that particular hush you only get when the countryside proper swallows you whole. My other half had insisted on navigating. I had insisted on trusting him. Both of us were, in our own ways, spectacularly wrong.

The mishap came not five minutes after we finally found the place. I stepped out of the car, stretched my legs with the theatrical groan of someone who has been folded into a Fiat 500 for the best part of three hours, and promptly twisted my ankle on a rogue cobblestone. Not a dramatic sprawl, mind you. More of a dignified stumble followed by an undignified hop, accompanied by my partner's helpful observation that I had "the grace of a newborn giraffe on roller skates." I chose to find this funny approximately two hours later, once the swelling had gone down and the local wine had gone in.

Turi itself, though - what a spot. The trullo, with its conical roof looking like something a particularly ambitious hobbit might commission, sat among ancient olive trees that had clearly seen far more elegant arrivals than mine. The air smelled of wild thyme and warm stone, that intoxicating Puglian cocktail that makes you immediately forget whatever chaos preceded it. Our host had left fresh figs on the kitchen table and a bottle of Primitivo that I eyed with the reverence it deserved.

We had arrived with grand walking plans, of course. The Adriatic coast lay temptingly close, and I had packed boots with the earnest optimism of someone who owns ordnance survey maps for fun. The first morning dawned bright and already warm, the kind of heat that wraps around you like a blanket fresh from the radiator. We set off for a coastal path near Monopoli, full of beans and bottled water, striding past dry-stone walls and prickly pear cacti with the self-satisfaction of proper hikers.

By midday, the weather had shifted from accommodating to frankly personal. The sun sat heavy and merciless, turning our pleasant cliffside stroll into something resembling a survival documentary. We found ourselves sheltering beneath a pine tree, sharing a warm bottle of water and reconsidering every life choice that had led us to attempt serious walking in southern Italian August. My twisted ankle throbbed in what I can only describe as a told-you-so manner.

That evening, back at Turi, we sat on the terrace as the heat finally softened into something golden and forgiving. The olive trees rustled. Somewhere, a dog barked with the lazy rhythm of a place that knows rushing is fundamentally pointless. I thought about how we had come chasing rugged coastal hikes and instead found ourselves defeated by a cobblestone and a particularly aggressive sun. There was something quietly instructive in it, though I would not have admitted as much at the time. Puglia, I was learning, does not bend to your itinerary. It simply waits, warm and unhurried, for you to catch up with its pace.

The next morning we walked again, but earlier, slower, following a gentler path through the olive groves near the property itself. My ankle held. The heat, still present, felt companionable rather than combative. We returned to Turi by mid-morning, peeled off damp shirts, and spent the afternoon doing very little indeed beneath that peculiar conical roof. Sometimes the best adventure is recognising when to stop trying so hard to have one.