I should have known the sat nav was plotting against me the moment it tried to route us through what looked like someone's olive grove. Twelve hours after leaving Gatwick, there we were: me, my partner, and a Renault Clio full of snacks and misplaced optimism, bumping down a gravel track in deepest Umbria with the fuel light blinking like a warning we absolutely chose to ignore.

The mishap came five minutes from our Pietralunga holiday home. We'd stopped at a supermarket in Citta di Castello for provisions, which in my case meant three types of cheese and a bottle of wine I couldn't pronounce. Back in the car, I confidently slammed the boot, heard the clunk, and watched every single bag tip sideways. The pecorino rolled under the passenger seat. The wine, mercifully, survived. The tomatoes did not. I spent the final stretch of journey with my left hand fishing around for rogue mozzarella balls while my right hand white-knuckled the steering wheel round yet another switchback.

Then the trees parted, and there it was. Perched on a hillside with views that made me actually say "blimey" out loud, the stone farmhouse sat looking like it had been waiting centuries for someone to arrive with slightly squashed groceries. The owners had left the key under a terracotta pot, which felt thrillingly illicit for about thirty seconds until I realised half of rural Italy probably operates on this system.

Stepping inside, the first thing that hit me was the cool. That thick-walled, centuries-old cool that no air conditioning can replicate. The second thing was the smell: woodsmoke from the fireplace, something herby I later learned was dried rosemary hung in the kitchen, and that particular dusty sweetness of old stone. My partner immediately claimed the bedroom with the iron bedstead and the window overlooking the valley. I didn't argue. I was too busy opening every cupboard in the kitchen like a child on Christmas morning, discovering a moka pot, a pasta machine, and a jar of lentils that looked older than me.

I made the rookie error of trying the outdoor shower first. In theory, showering beneath cypress trees with nothing but hills for company sounds idyllic. In practice, the water was absolutely freezing, and I emerged making a noise like a startled goose. My partner, naturally, filmed the whole thing from the terrace.

By evening, we'd abandoned any plan to cook and simply laid out what survived the tomato incident: bread, cheese, that unpronounceable wine, and olives we'd bought from a farm shop whose owner spoke no English and patiently tolerated my GCSE Italian. We sat on the terrace as the light went golden, then pink, then that particular deep blue that makes you understand why painters kept coming back to this part of the world.

I kept thinking someone would appear to tell us we'd made a terrible mistake, that this view, this peace, this slightly wonky wooden table couldn't possibly be ours for a fortnight. But no one came. Just the swallows darting about, the distant clank of sheep bells, and me, still finding bits of tomato in the car the next morning.