I have never been so relieved to see a petrol station in my life. Three hours of winding through Tuscan-Umbrian border roads, my hire car making noises I am fairly sure Fiat did not intend, and I had convinced myself we were destined to become one of those holiday anecdotes that starts with "well, they were trying to find Todi..." My partner, ever the optimist, had insisted we could make it on the fumes showing on the gauge. I, ever the realist who had spotted a promising-looking farm shop sign three kilometres back, was already mentally composing my last will and testament. We coasted into that Shell forecourt on what I am certain was literal vapour, and I celebrated with a packet of taralli and a coffee that tasted of burnt rubber and redemption.

The final approach to the property did little to settle my nerves. The satnav, having clearly given up on conventional roads, directed us up something that could generously be described as a farm track. Olive trees scratched at the wing mirrors. A wild boar scarpered into the cypresses, no doubt laughing. And then, suddenly, there it was: a honey-stoned farmhouse with a view that made me forget I had just aged approximately five years in the previous thirty minutes.

The key was in a lockbox, which I fumbled with while my partner began investigating the outdoor kitchen area with the intensity of someone who had spotted a pizza oven and was already mentally writing a menu. The inside was cool terracotta floors, beamed ceilings, and a kitchen that actually made me want to cook rather than perform my usual British routine of burning pasta and ordering takeaway. I opened the shutters and promptly let out an embarrassing little gasp. The valley fell away below us, all silver-green olive groves and distant hills, and I understood immediately why people use words like "breathtaking" without irony.

We had arrived on market day, though we did not yet know it. This discovery came the following morning when I attempted to drive into Todi proper for supplies, took a wrong turn that the satnav enthusiastically endorsed, and found myself in a medieval car park surrounded by stalls selling things I could not identify but urgently wanted. Umbrian truffles, I later learned, from a woman who spoke no English and communicated entirely through enthusiastic gestures and small tastes pressed upon us from a jar. We bought two, because she made us, and some lentils from Castelluccio because they looked pretty, and a length of strangozzi pasta that I carried around like a trophy for the next hour.

The farmhouse kitchen became our headquarters in a way I had not anticipated. My partner, who had watched approximately one YouTube video about wood-fired cooking, declared himself master of the pizza oven. His first attempt emerged blackened and weeping mozzarella, which we ate anyway on the terrace with local wine and the conviction that everything tastes better with this particular view. I attempted a truffle pasta that I am certain violated several Italian culinary laws, grating far too much of our precious purchase over butter and those strange flat noodles. It was, against all odds, magnificent. We ate in silence broken only by the occasional murmur of self-congratulation.

The small supermarket in Todi's lower town became my daily pilgrimage. I went ostensibly for bread and milk, returning with pecorino aged in walnut leaves, sausages I could not name, and once a jar of wild boar ragu that I presented to my partner like a cat delivering a particularly fine mouse. The butcher learned my face and began offering tastes of finocchiona, slicing it thick and watching me with what I chose to interpret as approval rather than amusement at my attempts to pronounce it.

By day four I had developed a routine of morning coffee on the terrace, a slow drive to collect provisions, and afternoon cooking that stretched into evening with the kind of unhurried pleasure I do not experience at home. I burned the first batch of lentils, undercooked a chicken, and made a risotto that was essentially soup. None of it mattered. The kitchen was warm, the wine was local and cheap, and the view never changed except to grow more golden as the week progressed.

On our final evening, my partner produced a pizza that actually resembled a pizza. We ate it as the sun disappeared behind the hills, already discussing when we might return, and whether we could justify the luggage allowance for another truffle.