Getting to Valfabbrica was supposed to be straightforward, which is of course exactly when travel decides to humble you. We'd flown into Perugia, picked up the hire car, and set off feeling rather pleased with ourselves. The sat nav had other ideas. Somewhere between a sunflower field and what I can only describe as a very committed goat, we ended up on a track that grew narrower with every metre. My husband Mark kept insisting it was a shortcut. I kept pointing out that shortcuts don't usually involve fording streams. By the time we reversed back past that same goat, who looked deeply unimpressed, we'd lost the best part of an hour and most of my patience.

The actual approach to the property, when we finally found it, made the chaos worth it. The villa sits among rolling hills that seem to fold into one another like green velvet, dotted with cypress trees and the occasional farmhouse. We pulled through wooden gates onto a gravel drive, and there it was: a proper stone country house with a tiled terrace and a pool glinting in the afternoon sun. The kids were out of the car before I'd even undone my seatbelt, already arguing about who got which bedroom.

Inside, the place had that lovely lived-in feel you don't always get with holiday lets. Terracotta floors, beamed ceilings, furniture that looked like it had actually been chosen by someone rather than ordered in bulk. The kitchen was enormous, with a long wooden table that immediately suggested long lunches and card games. Mark opened the shutters in the sitting room and let in a flood of golden light, plus what I later learned was the distant sound of church bells from Valfabbrica village, just a few minutes up the road.

I should mention the mishap that actually mattered. In my rush to claim the master bedroom, I managed to trip over the single step between the hallway and the kitchen, sending my phone skittering across the tiles. It survived. My dignity did not. The children found this hilarious, obviously. Mark offered to install a warning system for future crossings. I retreated to the terrace with a glass of wine and a view of olive groves, which seemed like the mature response.

That terrace became our headquarters for the first evening. We'd picked up supplies in Valfabbrica itself, a small village with a proper bakery and a butcher who patiently tolerated my phrasebook Italian. The local supermarket had everything we needed for simple meals, which was fortunate because none of us had the energy for restaurants after the journey. We ate bread and cheese and tomatoes that actually tasted of something, while the kids splashed in the pool and the light faded to that particular soft purple you only seem to get in Umbria.

What struck me most, sitting there with my feet up, was how quickly the stress of getting there dissolved. The wrong turns, the goat, my dramatic tumble, they all became part of the story rather than the disaster they felt like at the time. That's the thing about a proper cottage holiday, I think. The property gives you space to breathe, to let things go wrong and not matter. There's no hotel schedule, no restaurant bookings, no pressure to be anywhere or do anything.

The pool was the immediate winner with the children, naturally. I watched them from my sun lounger, book largely unread, as they invented increasingly elaborate diving competitions. The garden slopes away from the house, giving you that lovely sense of privacy and distance from the world. Somewhere below us, hidden by trees, a stream bubbled along. Birds I couldn't identify called back and forth. It was the kind of quiet that takes a moment to adjust to, like your ears need to recalibrate.

By the time we turned in, I was already thinking about the morning trip to the bakery, about whether we might walk to Valfabbrica village proper, about doing very little at all. The master bedroom had shutters that actually kept out the light, and I slept better than I had in months.

We'd arrived chaotic and slightly frayed, but Valfabbrica had already begun its work. Sometimes you need to get a bit lost to find exactly where you want to be.