I have to be honest with you, I nearly didn't make it to Cortona at all. Not because of some dramatic Italian railway strike or a lost passport, but because I confidently strode onto the wrong train at Florence, convinced my platform Italian was better than it actually is. Twenty minutes of smug window-gazing later, I found myself heading towards Bologna with a suitcase full of walking boots and a rapidly deflating sense of competence. An embarrassed shuffle back, one expensive coffee, and a properly checked ticket later, I finally arrived in the right place, red-faced but determined.

The drive up to the property from Cortona station was exactly what you would hope for. Cypress trees standing to attention like nature's own guard of honour, olive groves shimmering silver-green in the heat, and the sort of winding road that makes you grateful you paid for the extra insurance. I had planned this trip around walking, you see. Coastal hikes, long rambling trails, the whole healthy outdoor experience. The weather forecast had promised wall-to-wall sunshine and twenty-five degrees. I had packed accordingly: shorts, breathable tops, one of those hats with a flap at the back for neck protection. I was ready.

The villa itself was properly lovely. Stone walls thick enough to survive centuries, a terrace that looked out over the Val di Chiana, and a pool that winked at me the moment I arrived. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of someone who had been up since four in the morning, made a cup of tea that I immediately abandoned because it was far too hot for tea, and set about planning my first coastal hike.

Here is where I must gently reflect upon my own foolishness. Tuscany, as you may know, does not have a coast. Not within any reasonable walking distance of Cortona, at any rate. The Tyrrhenian Sea is hours away. I knew this, of course I knew this, but in my excitement I had somehow conflated "Tuscan hills" with "dramatic clifftop walks" and built an entire itinerary around an imaginary coastline. The nearest beach would require a day trip I had not planned for. My coastal hiking boots suddenly seemed rather optimistic.

The weather, meanwhile, had its own ideas. That promised twenty-five degrees had become thirty-two by my second morning, and the humidity wrapped around me like a damp wool blanket the moment I stepped outside. My planned ten-mile trek became a gentle potter to the nearest village, which became a slightly desperate retreat to the villa's shaded terrace by eleven o'clock. I lay by the pool instead, reading the same paragraph of my book seventeen times and occasionally dipping a toe in the water like someone testing the temperature of a bath.

By day three, I had adapted. The walks happened early, before the sun properly woke up, through the countryside immediately around the property. Dusty tracks between vineyards, the occasional startled hare, and views that genuinely made me stop and just look. One morning I walked to a tiny hamlet perhaps two miles away, arrived before the bakery had properly opened, and was rewarded with a warm cornetto and a coffee that tasted of actual achievement. The afternoons were for siestas, for pool-lounging, for accepting that my walking adventure was going to be rather more horizontal than originally intended.

The heat broke on my fifth day with a spectacular thunderstorm that sent me scrambling to bring in laundry I had forgotten I had hung out. I stood under the covered terrace and watched the lightning play across the hills, feeling rather smug about my decision not to be halfway up a non-existent coastal path at that particular moment.

I did eventually reach the coast, on my final day, driving down to the Maremma for a few hours. It was beautiful, of course, all rocky coves and turquoise water. But I found myself thinking back to those early morning hill walks, the mist rising from the valleys, the absolute silence broken only by my own slightly laboured breathing. That had become my holiday, not the one I had planned.

Next time, I told myself, checking my train platform three times, I will look at a map before I pack.