The sat-nav gave up on us somewhere between Perugia and nowhere, which is how I found myself wedged down a gravel track in a Fiat Panda that had definitely seen better decades, arguing with my wife about whether "Pietralunga" was the name of the village or the house. Spoiler: it's both, and neither was where we actually were at that moment.

We'd flown into Bologna because it was cheap, then spent four hours winding through Tuscany and into Umbria, the kids in the back asking every twelve minutes if we were there yet. My daughter had discovered she could make a noise like a distressed owl. My son had eaten an entire family bag of crisps and was now wearing them. The dream of la dolce vita felt rather distant.

The track got narrower. Brambles scratched the paintwork I didn't own. Then suddenly the trees opened up and there it was: a solid stone farmhouse with terracotta roof tiles and shutters that looked like they'd been sun-bleached since the Renaissance. A swimming pool glinted in the afternoon light. Somewhere, a cockerel made a noise of mild disapproval.

I reversed the Panda into what I optimistically called a parking space, caught the bumper on a rosemary bush, and declared victory.

The key was in a lockbox, which took me ten minutes and some creative language to open. The door creaked like something from a film, and we stepped into cool flagstone floors and beamed ceilings that smelt of woodsmoke and old stone. My wife went straight for the kitchen, because she knows me: I'd promised to cook proper Italian meals, and she wanted to assess the damage to this plan. Four-ring gas hob. Decent-sized fridge. A window overlooking olive trees. She raised an eyebrow, which in our marriage means "you might actually manage this."

The kids vanished upstairs, discovered twin beds in a vaulted room, and immediately began arguing over who got the one near the window. I wandered outside with a beer I'd bought at an Autograde three hours earlier, still warm, and sat by the pool watching swallows dart across the sky. The hills rolled away in every direction, green and gold, dotted with cypress trees that looked almost too perfectly placed to be real.

I thought about the journey, the sat-nav surrender, the crisps in the car upholstery. None of it mattered now. That's the thing about these places, isn't it? You arrive frazzled, slightly lost, wondering if you've made a terrible error. Then the quiet gets you. The warmth of the stone. The way the light changes in the evening, turning everything honey-coloured.

My daughter appeared, owl noise abandoned, asking if we could swim before tea. My wife emerged with actual olives she'd found on a tree outside. My son was still wearing crisps but seemed happy enough.

We didn't do anything remarkable that first evening. Paddled in the pool, opened some local wine that cost less than a London coffee, ate bread and cheese on the terrace while bats began their evening circuits. I burned the garlic bread slightly because I was too busy watching the sunset. Nobody minded.

Pietralunga, it turns out, is a village about ten minutes up the road, perched on a hill with a medieval tower and a couple of proper local shops. We'd explore it properly in the coming days, along with slow mornings by the pool and long lunches that turned into afternoon naps. But that first night, we just sat there in the warm air, slightly stunned by the peace of it all, listening to crickets and each other's ordinary conversations.

The sat-nav never did find its dignity again. I didn't mind one bit.