I should have known the sat nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through a field of sunflowers. There I was, trundling along in my hire car somewhere between Rome and oblivion, convinced I was about to discover a shortcut to Castiglione del Lago that no tourist had ever found. Reader, there was no shortcut. Just a very patient farmer, some vigorous hand gestures, and twenty minutes of reversing down a gravel track that felt approximately wide enough for a determined scooter.

By the time I actually arrived at the holiday home, I was in that peculiar state of sweaty delirium where everything seems either hilarious or deeply profound. The property sat perched above Lake Trasimeno, and I stumbled out of the car to find olive trees shimmering in the heat and the sort of view that makes you forget you have dried pasta stuck to your shirt from a motorway service station lunch. The house itself had that satisfying solidity of old stone, with terracotta tiles and shutters that looked like they'd witnessed several centuries of Italian summers.

I had grand plans, you see. Grand walking plans. I'd packed my most serious walking boots, the ones that had conquered the Peak District, and I'd mapped out coastal hikes along the lake shore that would have made Bear Grylls raise an eyebrow. The weather, I had checked obsessively. Sunny, thirty degrees, perfect. I was going to stride along promontories, discover hidden coves, become the sort of person who casually mentions their morning ten-miler before breakfast.

The first morning, I set off at six-thirty to beat the heat. The path from the village wound down through cypress trees, and I felt magnificent. By seven-fifteen, I had reached a small beach near the water's edge and was already fantasising about my transformation into a seasoned Mediterranean hiker. By eight, I was hiding under a fishing boat's tarpaulin, having discovered that Italian sun at that hour possesses a quality that British sun simply doesn't. It doesn't warm you. It interrogates you.

I made it back to the house by nine, slightly humbled, considerably redder, and with a new understanding of why the locals seemed to operate on an entirely different schedule. The afternoon became my friend. I learned to walk in the golden hours, when the light turns everything honey-coloured and the lake actually shimmers rather than blinding you with reflected aggression. The path to the Torre del Lago became my evening ritual, winding through vineyards where the grapes were fattening nicely and the occasional lizard would dart across the stones with far more energy than I could muster.

There was a particular walk I grew fond of, heading south from the village along a track that followed the shoreline. It passed through scrubby maquis where wild herbs grew in profusion, and if you timed it right, you could watch fishermen bringing in their nets as the sun dropped behind the hills. I never did manage a proper long-distance hike. The heat saw to that. But I found something better, perhaps. The art of moving slowly, of stopping to watch a heron standing motionless in the reeds, of accepting that my British marching pace was simply not built for Umbrian August.

On my final evening, I sat on the terrace with a glass of something local and watched a storm roll across the lake from the north. The lightning danced over the water, and I thought about my ambitious walking plans with something between amusement and affection. I'd come expecting to conquer the landscape and instead learned to let it set the pace. The boots went home largely unworn. The sandals, however, had done sterling service. Some holidays teach you what you need rather than what you planned, and sometimes what you need is to slow down, find some shade, and let the world come to you.