I have never been so grateful for a cup of tea in my entire life, and I had not even had one yet. That is the state I was in after our journey to Peio Terme, a little mountain village in South Tyrol where we had booked a cottage for the week. The plan was simple: drive from Verona airport, stop for lunch somewhere picturesque, arrive refreshed and ready for alpine relaxation. The reality involved a sat-nav that decided "scenic route" meant "single-track road designed for goats," a toddler who discovered car sickness somewhere near Trento, and me realising two hours in that I had packed my husband's walking boots but left his actual shoes on the kitchen table in Manchester. He was not impressed. He was, however, wearing bright orange trail runners for the rest of the holiday, which he insisted were "practically trainers anyway." They were not. They were boots with the ankle bit folded down. Every time he walked into a shop, I watched him try to casually hide his feet behind display racks. It never worked.

We found the cottage eventually, tucked into a quiet spot with views that almost made me forgive the sat-nav. Almost. The place had that solid, wood-heavy feel you get in proper alpine buildings, not the fake chalet nonsense you see in ski resorts trying too hard. Heavy beams, a kitchen that smelled faintly of coffee from previous guests, and a balcony where you could sit with your brew and watch the mountains do absolutely nothing, which was precisely the point. I stood there with my hands wrapped round a mug I had not earned yet, just breathing. My husband was still muttering about his shoes, but even he went quiet when the evening light hit the peaks across the valley. The toddler, mercifully recovered, had discovered the garden and was having a serious conversation with a pine cone.

What struck me first about Peio Terme was how unbothered everything felt. Not lazy, exactly, but confident in its own pace. The village itself is small, the sort of place where the baker knows which bread you will want before you do, and the walking paths start practically from your doorstep without any big performance about it. We wandered down to the thermal baths the next morning, slightly stiff from the drive and from sleeping in a bed that was firmer than our one at home. The warm pools were exactly what three people in a car for five hours needed. My husband floated past in his goggles, still wearing the orange boots in my mind, though obviously not in the water. That would have been a new low.

The cottage became our little headquarters for doing very little very happily. Mornings on that balcony with proper South Tyrol bread and jam, afternoons wandering up gentle paths through larch woods, evenings too tired to do anything except cook simple pasta and argue about whose turn it was to read the bedtime story. I caught myself one afternoon just staring at the mountains while the washing up waited, and I felt briefly guilty about the laziness of it. Then I remembered that this was the whole reason we came. Not to tick off sights or post impressive walks. Just to be somewhere else together, moving slower, letting the days stretch without filling them.

By day three, the orange boots had become a running joke rather than a sore point. We even photographed them on a bench with the mountains behind, my husband pulling a face that suggested both embarrassment and reluctant acceptance. That picture is on our fridge now. It makes me smile every time I make tea, which is often, and which I now appreciate properly, sitting still, doing nothing much at all.