I have never been so pleased to see a gravel driveway in all my life. Twelve hours after leaving Gatwick, four of which were spent in a rental car queue at Rome Fiumicino that moved slower than my nan at a car boot sale, we finally pulled up to the Magione. My other half was driving, which was just as well, because I had spent the last forty minutes of the journey convinced we were lost. The sat nav had taken us down a lane so narrow that I genuinely thought we would need to fold the wing mirrors in, and at one point a very unbothered goat watched us crawl past with what I can only describe as undisguised pity.

The mishap, though. I should tell you about the mishap.

We had stopped at a supermarket in Perugia to pick up essentials, by which I mean bread, cheese, wine, and more wine. In my enthusiasm to load the boot, I managed to wedge the shopping bag containing the wine bottles at a precarious angle. You can see where this is going. The moment we hit the first proper bump on the rural road to the property, there was a sound like a small explosion from behind me. One bottle had committed suicide against the spare tyre. The boot now smelled like a vineyard that had given up on life. We spent ten minutes mopping it out with baby wipes and muttering at each other, by which point I was ready to turn round and fly home. My partner handed me a warm can of Coke from the glovebox and said, with the patience of a saint who had definitely married beneath them, "At least we still have three bottles." Fair point.

The Magione itself appeared suddenly after a bend in the cypress trees, and I will admit that my mood lifted faster than I would like to admit. It is the sort of place that makes you feel slightly underdressed for your own holiday. The building is old stone, warm in the late afternoon sun, with a proper tiled roof and shutters that have clearly seen a few centuries come and go. A woman named Elena met us at the door, speaking better English than I speak anything, and showed us round with the practised ease of someone who has done this thousands of times but still seems to mean it.

The first thing that struck me was the quiet. Not the awkward, heavy quiet of an empty house, but the alive quiet of a place where the only sounds are insects and distant church bells. We stepped through to the back terrace and there it was, the view that proper travel writers probably describe as breathtaking. I just stood there with my mouth slightly open, which is my usual expression when confronted with beauty I have not earned. Rolling hills, olive groves, a glimpse of Lake Trasimeno in the middle distance. Somewhere down the lane, a dog barked once and thought better of it.

Inside, the place had that particular coolness of thick stone walls, and a kitchen that actually made me want to cook rather than just microwave things in despair. There was a fireplace I immediately imagined using, despite it being September and still warm enough to sit outside in a t-shirt. Elena left us with a bottle of local olive oil and some advice about the nearest village, which she said was two kilometres away and had a bakery that opened at half six in the morning. I nodded as if I would definitely be up at half six, rather than my actual plan of sleeping until the wine situation demanded otherwise.

That first evening, we sat on the terrace with the surviving bottles and some bread that had survived the boot incident with only minor olive oil staining. The sun went down in that slow, theatrical way it does in Italy, and I found myself doing that thing where you try to take a photo of it, realise the photo is hopeless, and just watch instead. I thought about the wine in the boot, the goat, the twelve hours of travel, and how none of it mattered now. I am not someone who believes in holiday magic, but I will say this: sitting there, slightly drunk on cheap red and exhaustion, I felt something close to it.

We have a week here. I have no plans beyond eating too much, walking to that bakery at least once, and possibly apologising to my partner for the wine thing. The Lake Trasimeno beaches are nearby, apparently, and there are hill towns in every direction. But right now, I am not thinking about any of that. Right now, I am thinking about how the stone floor feels cool under bare feet, and how the crickets are louder than I expected, and how I have already forgotten what my work email password is.

The second bottle is open. The stars are coming out. Somewhere, that goat is probably asleep, untroubled by tourists. I think I am going to like it here.