I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when the sat nav decided that Castel Focognano was apparently located somewhere in the middle of a cypress grove. There we were, my partner and I, bumping along a track that grew narrower with every turn, convinced we were moments from arriving at our Tuscan paradise. Instead, we found ourselves face to face with a very unimpressed goat and a farmer who spoke no English but managed to convey, through magnificent gestures, that we were nowhere near our destination. Forty minutes of reversing later, we emerged onto a proper road, slightly shaken and significantly wiser about trusting technology in rural Italy.

When we finally found the actual property, perched on a hillside with views that made the whole ordeal worthwhile, I realised something important. Getting lost in Tuscany is not a bug in the system. It is absolutely the feature.

Our first morning, determined to avoid any further navigational disasters, we set out with no plan whatsoever. We simply walked. The village of Castel Focognano itself is small enough to feel intimate yet has enough winding medieval streets to thoroughly disorient a couple of overconfident Brits. We turned left where we should have gone right, found ourselves in a tiny piazza with a fountain that looked older than my entire family tree, and struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman tending his window boxes. He directed us, via more gestures and a few words we mostly misunderstood, towards what he kept calling "il buono pane." The good bread, apparently. We followed his pointing finger down a path that grew progressively less path-like until we stumbled upon a bakery operating from what appeared to be someone's converted garage. The bread was still warm. We ate an entire loaf sitting on a wall, feeling ridiculously pleased with ourselves.

That set the pattern for the week. Each day we would set out with vague intentions and return with stories of accidental discoveries. A vineyard we found because I needed the loo and spotted a promising-looking building. The owner, amused by my desperate expression, offered not just facilities but a tasting of his family's Chianti, produced in quantities so small it never leaves the valley. We bought three bottles and spent the walk home debating whether we had actually understood the price correctly.

One afternoon, chasing what we thought was a shortcut back to the property, we ended up on a ridge with views across the Casentino valley that no guidebook had prepared us for. There was no viewpoint marker, no car park, no other tourists. Just us, some very patient sheep, and the kind of landscape that makes you understand why people paint. My partner observed, quite rightly, that we would never have found it if we had known where we were going. I had to admit she had a point. I am not naturally someone who embraces uncertainty. I like plans, itineraries, knowing where the nearest decent coffee is at all times. But Tuscany, and particularly this corner of it, seems designed to reward the opposite approach.

The mishaps continued, of course. We missed a turning and discovered a tiny church with frescoes that looked genuinely medieval, its door unlocked and its interior silent. We took a wrong fork on a woodland path and found a clearing where wild boar had obviously been rooting, the evidence fresh and slightly alarming. We attempted to find a recommended restaurant, failed entirely, and instead ate the best ribollita of my life in a place that had no menu, just whatever the owner had decided to cook that day.

By the end of the week, I had stopped checking my phone for directions. I had stopped worrying about whether we were making the most of our time, seeing the right things, ticking the right boxes. There is something deeply restorative about surrendering to the possibility of getting lost, especially in a landscape as generous as this one. Castel Focognano and its surrounding hills do not hide their treasures maliciously. They simply wait for you to wander far enough off the expected route to deserve them.

On our final evening, we found ourselves accidentally on that same ridge again, having taken yet another wrong turning on what should have been a simple walk. The sun was setting, the valley was turning gold, and somewhere below us a dog was barking at nothing in particular. My partner laughed and said we had come full circle. I thought about that goat, that farmer, our first chaotic arrival. I would not change a single wrong turn.