I have never been so grateful for a sat nav in my entire life. There we were, my partner and I, crawling along the Venetian Coast in mid-October with the rain coming down in that particularly Italian way that makes you wonder if the sky is personally offended by your arrival. Our little hire car had already developed a worrying wheeze, and I had made the classic mistake of relying on my phone's data roaming, which had apparently roamed off to Switzerland without telling me.

The mishap, though. I need to tell you about the mishap. We had stopped at what I confidently declared was "definitely the right turning" based on a hand-drawn map I had sketched from Google Street View the night before. This map, I should add, featured a tree that looked nothing like the actual tree, a bridge that turned out to be a drainage ditch, and a road that simply did not exist in three-dimensional reality. We found ourselves in someone's olive grove, surrounded by damp cats and the unmistakable sensation of being watched by an elderly man in a doorway who had clearly seen this exact scene play out with other tourists for forty years.

I waved. He did not wave back. The cats judged us silently.

Retreating with what dignity we could muster, we eventually found the actual entrance to Albarella, and I will tell you now that arriving in late autumn rather than peak summer changed everything about how we experienced the place. The island settlement sits in the lagoon, connected by a narrow causeway, and in October the whole atmosphere shifts from bustling holiday resort to something far more contemplative. The marina, which I imagine heaves with boats and bronzed sailors in August, had taken on a melancholy, end-of-season beauty. A handful of yachts remained, their owners presumably the dedicated sort who do not require reliable sunshine to enjoy maritime life.

Our accommodation was one of those modern terraced properties, all clean lines and big windows, and I immediately understood why the seasonal timing mattered so much. In summer, I suspect, you would barely notice the interior. You would crash through from beach to shower to bed, the house merely functional infrastructure for outdoor living. But in October, with the temperature hovering around that awkward zone between jumper and coat, the space became something we actually inhabited. We cooked proper meals in the kitchen rather than grabbing pizza on the go. We sat on the covered terrace with cups of tea, watching the light change over the lagoon in that particular autumn way that makes everything look slightly golden and nostalgic.

The island itself had a fascinating seasonal personality. The golf course, which I gather is something of a selling point, lay there in splendid semi-abandonment, a few determined souls in waterproofs making their way around while we walked the dog-walking paths nearby. The equestrian centre had reduced hours, which meant my partner's vague ambition to go riding remained safely theoretical. The shops and restaurants in the little commercial area operated on a reduced schedule that required actual planning rather than spontaneous wandering.

I found myself reflecting on this more than I expected. There is something slightly embarrassing about being a tourist who arrives after the main event, like turning up to a party during the washing-up. But the Venetian Coast in autumn teaches you something about patience, about finding pleasure in emptiness rather than abundance. We walked for miles along the lagoon paths, collecting the sort of shells and driftwood that summer visitors would dismiss as irrelevant. We talked more than we had in months, simply because the weather forced a slower pace.

The mosquitos, admittedly, had not received the autumn memo. They remained enthusiastically present, which I suppose is the lagoon's way of keeping you humble.

By our final evening, sitting on that terrace with the heating lamp doing its best impression of a Mediterranean sunset, I felt genuinely grateful for my terrible map and the olive grove detour. The season had given us Albarella at its most honest, stripped of performance, existing simply as a beautiful place where people live and the water moves in and out according to rhythms older than any holiday schedule.