I have to admit, I was rather pleased with myself for booking a proper rural retreat in Umbria. "Spello," I kept telling people, rolling the name around my mouth like a particularly satisfying olive. "Staying just outside the village itself. Very authentic." What I failed to anticipate was that authentic Italian country living begins with authentic Italian country driving, and my first impression of the region was less "la dolce vita" and more "la dolce why-is-this-road-the-width-of-a-bicycle."

The mishap came approximately three minutes after leaving the main road. My hire car, which had seemed perfectly sensible at Perugia Airport, suddenly revealed itself to be roughly the width of a small bus. I rounded a bend to find a local gentleman on a Vespa coming the other way, and in my panic to give him room, I deposited the passenger-side wheels into a drainage ditch with a gentle, almost polite thump. The gentleman paused, lit a cigarette, and watched me attempt to reverse out for a solid four minutes before offering directions in a dialect I understood not one word of. We parted friends, I think, though he may have been placing a curse on my gearbox.

By the time I reached the property, I was in what estate agents might call "a state." The stone farmhouse sat among olive groves with that particular Umbrian stillness that makes you feel immediately foolish for having rushed. Terracotta pots lined the entrance. A swimming pool glimmered at the edge of the garden, already promising relief from the heat that was building. I stood there with my suitcase, smelling wild thyme and my own slightly nervous sweat, and felt the first proper breath of holiday enter my lungs.

The owner, a woman called Luisa with hands that suggested she actually used her vegetable garden rather than simply photographed it, showed me around with patient humour. The kitchen had terracotta floors and a door that opened directly onto a covered terrace. She explained, in excellent English, that morning walks were best taken before eight, when the valley still held its coolness. "After," she said, making a gesture like an oven door closing, "you will swim, not walk. Or you will be foolish."

I resolved to be foolish, at least for the first morning. I woke at six, pulled on walking shoes, and set out along the track that wound past the property and up toward Monte Subasio. The light at that hour has a quality I struggle to describe without sounding like I've swallowed a guidebook. Golden, yes, but also forgiving, softening the edges of everything it touched. I walked through olive groves where the trees looked sculptural, ancient, almost deliberately arranged. Grasshoppers started up as I passed. Somewhere a dog barked with the half-hearted enthusiasm of something that had already done its proper barking earlier.

By nine I had reached a vantage point where Spello itself lay below me, its pink-tinged stone glowing in the strengthening sun. I felt tremendously pleased with myself, healthful and continental, right up until the moment I realised I had brought insufficient water and the temperature had climbed with the subtlety of a staircase rather than the gentle slope I had imagined. The walk back became less contemplative and more survivalist. I passed a field of sunflowers, their heads already turning to follow the sun, and envied them their efficiency.

The heat, I discovered, reshapes your day entirely. My ambitious plans for afternoon exploration collapsed by eleven, when I found myself in the pool with the desperate gratitude of a man who has underestimated Mediterranean summer. The water was perfect, cool enough to shock then warm enough to linger. I floated there, watching swallows dart across the sky, and understood properly what Luisa had meant. The weather was not an inconvenience to be overcome but a rhythm to be accepted.

That evening I walked into Spello proper, timing my arrival for when the stone streets released their stored warmth and the village stirred again. I ate pasta with tartufo nero at a tiny restaurant where the owner seemed faintly surprised I had found the place, then walked back in darkness, guided by fireflies among the olives. The ditch, I noted with satisfaction, remained undisturbed by my return.