I have never been very good at reading maps, which is how I ended up driving our hire car down a steep cobbled lane meant for donkeys rather than a Fiat Panda. My partner was gripping the door handle and making that particular face he does when he is trying not to laugh and scream at the same time. We were looking for our holiday let in Castelsardo, a medieval hill town on Sardinia's northern coast, and I had confidently ignored the satnav in favour of what I called "instinct" and what he later called "stubbornness masquerading as navigation."

We found the place eventually, of course. A local woman watering her geraniums took pity on us and pointed upward with her hosepipe. The property sat tucked into the old town walls, a proper honey-coloured stone house with green shutters and a small terrace that looked straight out to sea. I stood there with my ridiculous oversized suitcase, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, and felt that lovely shift that happens when travel chaos suddenly becomes funny in retrospect. The donkey lane became our running joke for the week. Every morning one of us would suggest taking it to the bakery.

The first thing I did after dumping my case was make a cup of tea and simply sit on that terrace. The Mediterranean stretched out below, impossibly blue and glittering, and the town's ancient castle sat perched on the rocky promontory to my left. I had brought three novels with me, ambitious planning for someone who normally manages about six pages before falling asleep. Here, though, something different happened. I read for two hours without moving, except to refill my cup. The sun moved across the terrace. A cat appeared from somewhere and judged my book choice. Time did that stretchy, generous thing it only seems to do on holiday.

Castelsardo itself encourages this pace. The old town is a maze of narrow staircases and sudden viewpoints, each turn revealing another washing line strung with colourful linens or a tiny shop selling coral jewellery and local honey. I wandered down to the small harbour most mornings, not to do anything particularly, but to watch the fishing boats and eat a granita that gave me an ice cream headache. The baker near the cathedral did these miraculous little pistoccus biscuits, twice-baked and perfect for dunking. I developed a minor obsession. My partner started calling me "the biscuit woman" in an affectionate way, or at least I chose to interpret it as affectionate.

Our days settled into a rhythm so gentle it barely qualified as a rhythm. Late breakfasts on the terrace with bread still warm from the bakery. Reading until the sun became too insistent, then retreating inside for a nap or more reading in the cool stone interior. Afternoon strolls to the nearest beach, a pretty cove about fifteen minutes walk downhill, where the water was clear enough to count fish without snorkelling. I did not count the fish. I floated on my back and looked at clouds, which feels like an activity when you are in the right frame of mind.

I had worried before coming that I would feel restless, that a week of deliberate laziness would make me twitchy and guilty. I am normally terrible at doing nothing. I make to-do lists for weekends. I refresh my emails on Sundays. Something about this place, though, with its ancient stones and slow afternoons and the particular quality of light at six o'clock when everyone emerges for their passeggiata, wore down my need to be productive. I stopped checking my phone. I stopped thinking about what I ought to be doing. I finished two and a half of those novels, which felt like a genuine achievement rather than mere indulgence.

On our last evening, we walked up to the castle at sunset. The whole town turned golden, the sea became bronze, and I thought about how I would describe this week to friends back home. I realised I would mostly talk about the small things. The biscuits. The cat. The particular angle of shade on the terrace at eleven in the morning, perfect for reading without squinting. The way my partner's shoulders dropped after three days, the tension he had carried without noticing finally leaving him.

We did not see half of what Sardinia offers. We did not take a boat trip or visit famous ruins or hike dramatic trails. We stayed within a few miles of our little stone house and let the holiday come to us slowly, like the tide coming in. I am still not good at reading maps, but I think I have finally learned to read the signs that tell me when to stop rushing.