I have never been brilliant at reading the small print, which is how I ended up driving a hire car the size of a small bus through the narrow lanes of Lignano Sabbiadoro convinced I had booked a hotel. The satnav had already directed me through what felt like three people's front gardens, my wife was gripping the door handle like we were landing a plane, and the children had started that low whining that means someone is about to be sick or demand an ice cream, possibly both. Then the road opened up and there it was: a neat little terraced house with a small garden, a terrace with a parasol, and a sign that confirmed we had in fact booked a self-catering property. I had spent the entire journey practising my reception desk Italian for nothing.

Unpacking the car took longer than the drive from Venice Marco Polo, mostly because I had overpacked to a degree that suggested we were emigrating rather than staying a week. The children immediately claimed the twin bedroom, leaving my wife and me with the double and a view of the garden that was, I had to admit, rather lovely. The house was simple in the best way: tiled floors that stayed cool in the heat, a kitchen that actually had more than one saucepan, and a dining area that opened onto the terrace through sliding doors. I stood there with a cup of tea that I had made with some difficulty using an Italian kettle, feeling disproportionately pleased with myself.

The mishap of my booking confusion actually turned into the making of the holiday. That first evening, we walked the ten minutes to the beach through streets lined with oleander and small shops selling inflatable dolphins. The sand at Lignano is proper sand, not the shingle you sometimes get, and the Adriatic was that particular shade of green-blue that makes British seaside photography look like it was taken through a dirty window. The children disappeared into the waves and my wife and I sat on towels, still slightly dazed from the journey, watching the sun lower itself towards the horizon with the lazy indifference that only Italian sunsets seem to manage.

What I had not expected was how quickly the house would feel like ours. By the second morning I was walking to the local bakery for fresh cornetti, mangling my order with cheerful incompetence, and returning feeling like a native. The small garden became our breakfast room, the terrace our evening aperitivo spot. There was something deeply satisfying about cooking simple pasta with tomatoes from the nearby market, eating outside while the children chased each other on the little patch of lawn, and not having to dress for dinner or make polite conversation with strangers.

I am not someone who naturally relaxes. My default holiday setting is to plan, to optimise, to worry that I am not making the most of things. But there was something about this particular setup - the modest scale of it, the self-containedness, the way the days seemed to arrange themselves around swimming and eating and reading and very little else - that wore down my usual restlessness. I stopped checking my phone for entertainment options. I stopped feeling guilty about the afternoon nap. I even stopped minding that I had accidentally booked a cottage instead of a hotel, though my wife has reminded me of this approximately forty times since we arrived.

The Venetian coast has a particular atmosphere that I had not experienced before: less grand than the proper Veneto, less tourist-saturated than the city itself, but with enough of that Italian ease to make ordinary moments feel slightly elevated. An evening walk for gelato became a proper expedition. A morning swim before the heat built up felt like a stolen pleasure. The house, with its plain walls and functional furniture, asked nothing of us except to inhabit it simply, which turned out to be exactly what we needed.

We have three days left and I have already started dreading the repacking of the car, though perhaps with slightly less luggage this time. The children have collected an improbable number of shells. My wife has a tan line from her sandals. I have read two books, which for me constitutes a personal record. None of this would have happened, I suspect, in the hotel I thought I had booked, with its buffet breakfasts and scheduled activities and pressure to be somewhere at a certain time. Sometimes the wrong turn leads exactly where you needed to go.