I have never been so relieved to see a stone wall in my life. Twelve hours after leaving Luton, there it was: the boundary of our holiday let in Piegaro, looking exactly like the photo except somehow more crumbling and more beautiful at the same time.

The journey had been one of those classic British holiday odysseys. Up at four, flight to Rome, hire car that smelled faintly of parmesan and regret, then three hours of increasingly narrow Umbrian roads. My partner drove while I navigated, which in hindsight was our first mistake. My Italian extends to ordering coffee and apologising, neither of which helps with rural signage. We missed the turning for Piegaro twice. The third time, we missed it because I was triumphantly pointing out we had finally found it, and my arm blocked my partner's view of the actual turning.

The mishap came during our final approach. The track to the property is steep and stony, the sort that makes you question every decision that led you to rent a car with sports suspension. Halfway up, a chicken wandered out. My partner braked. The chicken sauntered off unbothered. Our shopping bag, which I had foolishly placed on the back seat without securing, did not saunter. It launched. A litre of olive oil, two bottles of local wine, and a family pack of pasta hit the boot with the force of a small meteor strike. The wine survived. The olive oil did not. For the remainder of the week, our Fiat 500 smelled like a salad dressing that had achieved sentience and chosen violence.

We arrived at the property door in a state of mild hysteria, me clutching the intact wine like a trophy, my partner wiping olive oil off his elbow with a motorway service station napkin. Then the door opened onto the kitchen, and we both stopped talking.

It was one of those spaces that makes you feel immediately stupid for ever worrying about square footage back home. Exposed wooden beams, terracotta floors worn smooth by decades of use, a fireplace you could practically stand in. The kitchen had clearly been cooked in properly over the years, not staged for a photograph. There were actual wooden spoons with actual wear patterns. A collection of oil bottles in varying stages of emptiness lined the windowsill, catching the afternoon light. I immediately forgave the property every slightly wonky drawer and the one cupboard door that needed a particular lift-and-shove technique.

I wandered out to the terrace while my partner dealt with the olive oil crime scene. The view stopped me properly. Rolling hills in that particular Umbrian green that seems almost aggressive in its loveliness, olive groves terraced into the slope below, distant cypress trees standing to attention. A gecko darted across the wall. Somewhere, a dog barked with the lazy rhythm of a creature that has never once worried about a deadline.

I found myself doing that thing I always promise I will not do on holiday: planning. Mental lists of day trips, restaurants, museums. Then I caught sight of my oil-stained reflection in the terrace door and laughed out loud. We had twelve bottles of wine, a now-fragrant hire car, and a kitchen that practically begged for slow, pointless cooking. The planning could wait. Possibly forever.

By evening, we had established our positions: my partner at the fireplace attempting to make it draw properly, me on the terrace with a glass of surviving wine, watching the light change over the valley. The chicken, presumably, was somewhere nearby, unbothered and victorious.