Getting to San Feliciano was meant to be straightforward. I had the sat nav, a packet of crisps, and that particular brand of overconfidence that comes from having successfully navigated the M25. Four hours from Rome, they said. Easy drive through Umbria, they said. What nobody mentioned was that Italian country roads have a sense of humour, and my hire car was apparently the punchline.

I took a wrong turn somewhere near Perugia and ended up on a gravel track that grew narrower with every metre, hedgerows scratching both sides of the car like an overenthusiastic cat. The sat nav kept insisting I make a U-turn, which would have required a helicopter. Eventually I emerged into a farmyard where an elderly gentleman was watching me with the patient expression of someone who has seen many idiots in Fiat 500s. He pointed back the way I had come, laughed, and said something in dialect that I choose to believe was complimentary.

When I finally pulled up at San Feliciano, the late afternoon sun was doing that golden thing across Lake Trasimeno, and I promptly forgot every swear word I had accumulated. The property sits right on the water's edge, a proper old stone building with terracotta tiles and shutters that have seen decades of summers. I stood there with my suitcase, still smelling of car panic, and the owner handed me a cold beer without being asked. Some people just understand trauma.

The plan had been ambitious. I had printed walking routes, studied elevation maps, packed boots that I genuinely believed would make me look like someone who knew what they were doing. The weather forecast had promised mid-twenties, perfect for striding along the lakeshore path that winds towards Passignano sul Trasimeno. I was going to be that person, the one who rises early and covers serious ground before lunch.

Morning one began with mist. Not the atmospheric, photogenic kind, but the thick, clinging sort that made everything feel like a lukewarm shower. I set off anyway, because I had the boots and the printed routes and the stubbornness. Within twenty minutes I was sweating through my supposedly breathable shirt, visibility down to the next cypress tree. The path along the water was pretty enough, flat and lined with reeds where herons stood like grumpy pensioners, but I could feel the humidity pressing down. By the time I reached the first viewpoint, a modest hillock with a bench, I was already checking my watch and wondering if ten thirty was too early for a second breakfast.

The weather broke properly by day three. I had woken to proper heat, the kind that makes the lake shimmer and the cicadas start their industrial noise. My serious walking plan evaporated along with my ambition. I discovered that San Feliciano has its own rhythm, and it does not involve marching anywhere quickly. I took to shorter loops instead, morning strolls before the sun climbed too high, wandering the path to the tiny harbour where fishermen mend nets with the unhurried pace of people who have never once checked a fitness tracker.

There is a particular walk I kept returning to, barely a mile along the shore towards the Punta Navaccia beach, where the reeds give way to proper sand and the water turns that impossible turquoise. I would go early, watch the lake come alive with rowing boats and the occasional optimistic swimmer, then retreat to the terrace with a book and the certain knowledge that I was not covering the distances I had planned.

By the end of the week I had abandoned my printed routes entirely. The boots stayed in the car. I walked in sandals, slowly, stopping for long lunches of lake fish and local wine, letting the heat dictate everything. It turns out I am not the serious hiker I imagined. I am someone who gets lost on gravel tracks, sweats through technical clothing, and eventually surrenders to the pace of a place. San Feliciano taught me that, though I suspect the elderly gentleman in the farmyard could have told me the same thing, probably in exactly those words.