I have never been brilliant with directions, and my first attempt at reaching our holiday let outside Citta di Castello proved this beyond doubt. Having flown into Perugia and collected a hire car that smelled faintly of pine air freshener and regret, I set off with the confidence of a person who had glanced at Google Maps exactly once. Within twenty minutes I was on a dirt track between two olive groves, waving apologetically at a farmer who looked entirely unsurprised to see yet another lost tourist. The sat nav had decided that "shortcut" meant "abandon all hope." I reversed for what felt like a mile, the car making unhappy crunching noises, until I found the proper turning. My partner sat in silence, which was somehow worse than commentary.

We arrived in late October, that strange in-between season when Umbria cannot quite decide if it is still summer or finally admitting to autumn. The property sat on a gentle slope above a valley, and the first thing that struck me was the quality of the light. It had that particular golden thickness you get when the sun sits lower in the sky, filtering through chestnut trees that were dropping their leaves in lazy spirals. The swimming pool had been covered for the season, its tarpaulin collecting a shallow puddle of rainwater that reflected the sky like a forgotten mirror. I felt a brief pang about this, then remembered I do not actually enjoy swimming in anything below twenty degrees.

The house itself was built from that warm honey-coloured stone you see everywhere in this part of Italy, with terracotta roof tiles and wooden shutters that had faded to a soft grey. The owner had left the heating off, understandably, and the interior carried the particular chill of stone buildings in shoulder season. My partner immediately located the thermostat while I stood in the kitchen, opening cupboards with the nosiness of a person who judges holiday accommodation primarily by its selection of cooking pots. There were adequate pots. I was satisfied.

What the season gave us, and what summer visitors would miss entirely, was the smell of woodsmoke beginning to drift from neighbouring properties. The vines on the pergola outside had turned the colour of rust, and the grape harvest was already finished, leaving bare tendrils that scratched against the stone in the evening breeze. I found this melancholy rather beautiful, though I could not say why. Perhaps because it felt honest. October does not pretend to be cheerful.

That first evening, we walked into Citta di Castello proper, perhaps ten minutes by car down winding roads that had me gripping the steering wheel with unnecessary tension. The town sat in that peculiar half-state of tourist towns out of season. Restaurants were open but relaxed, not hungry for custom. We ate tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms at a place near the cathedral, and I remember thinking that this was exactly the right food for the weather. Rich, earthy, slightly too much. The mushrooms had been gathered locally, the waiter told us, though I suspect he told everyone this. I did not mind. It might even have been true.

Walking back to the car, the temperature had dropped sharply. I had brought a jacket of wildly optimistic thinness and spent the journey back hugging myself and making theatrical shivering noises. The house, thankfully, had warmed through. We sat with the windows open to the darkness, listening to something rustling in the undergrowth that we decided was probably a hedgehog and definitely not a wild boar, despite my partner's insistence on this latter theory.

I woke early the next morning, jet-lagged and confused, to find mist sitting in the valley below like spilled milk. The chestnut trees had disappeared entirely into it, and for a moment the landscape felt reduced to just our terrace and the immediate slope of hill. It was extraordinarily peaceful. I made terrible coffee with the stovetop pot and stood outside in my pyjamas, feeling the cold on my face and the warmth of the cup in my hands, and thought that this was precisely why one bothered with the journey and the wrong turns and the farmer's unimpressed expression. Some things simply require the effort.

The mist burned off by mid-morning, revealing the familiar view of rolling hills and distant farmhouses. We spent that day doing very little, which was the point. A walk to a nearby village for bread that was still warm, an attempt to identify birds from a guidebook we had not thought to bring, a long lunch on the terrace with a blanket over my knees because I refuse to accept that summer has ended even when evidence is overwhelming. The sun was warm when it found you, but the shade had turned traitorous. This is October in Umbria. It offers no certainties.

I think what stays with me, more than any particular sight or meal, is that quality of transition. The house and the landscape around it were preparing for something, winding down with visible deliberation. There was no urgency to any of it. I found myself matching my pace to this rhythm without quite meaning to, moving slower, noticing more, accepting that some plans would be abandoned to weather or whim. It is not a lesson I have managed to retain, but I remember learning it, there on that terrace with the woodsmoke rising and the light fading earlier each evening, feeling briefly like a person who understood something important about letting things be.