I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our arrival at Ciovo Okrug Gornji did not disappoint. We had flown into Split, collected our hire car with the sort of overconfidence that only comes from watching someone else parallel park on YouTube, and set off for what looked on Google Maps like a straightforward twenty-minute coastal drive. It was not straightforward. Within ten minutes we had taken a wrong turn somewhere near Trogir, found ourselves in a car park that appeared to serve a boatyard and someone's very determined goat, and discovered that our sat nav had developed what I can only describe as an existential crisis. "Turn around where possible," it kept saying, as if we were being judged. We were being judged, mostly by the goat.

By the time we spotted the turning for Okrug Gornji, my partner had that particular set to her jaw that means she is being extremely patient and will definitely bring this up later over wine. The road narrowed to something roughly the width of a confident bicycle, wound past olive groves and stone houses with that weathered, stubborn look that Croatian architecture does so well, and finally deposited us at a cluster of apartments that I desperately hoped included ours. It did, though I managed to reverse into a lavender bush while trying to park, releasing a cloud of purple and a smell so aggressively relaxing that it felt almost sarcastic given my blood pressure.

The apartment itself was up a flight of outdoor stairs, which I climbed with the swagger of a man who had not just fought a goat and a bush in quick succession. The key was in a lockbox, and I spent a solid five minutes jabbing at the code with the particular incompetence that comes from knowing someone is watching. When the door finally opened, we stepped into cool tile-floored peace, and I felt something in my shoulders drop that I had not realised I was holding. The place was simple, clean, and had that particular Mediterranean brightness where everything looks slightly overexposed in the most flattering way. A small balcony overlooked the sort of blue water that makes you suspicious of Instagram filters, except there it was, entirely unfiltered and apparently real.

I immediately opened the fridge, because I am a creature of habit, and found it empty except for a single bottle of water left by the owner. This was, in its way, perfect. No welcome pack of mysterious local cheeses to navigate, no pressure to immediately appreciate someone's grandmother's preserves. Just water, silence, and the distant sound of someone else's holiday beginning more successfully than ours.

We stood on that balcony for longer than I care to admit, still in our travelling clothes, still slightly vibrating from the drive, watching a ferry cut across toward Split and wondering if we should attempt the beach before dinner or simply surrender to the afternoon. We surrendered. There is something about that first hour in a new place, when you have not yet unpacked your optimism along with your swimming things, when the mishaps are still fresh enough to be funny rather than ominous. The goat, the lavender, the sat nav's quiet disappointment in us. We laughed about it then, and I suspect we will laugh about it for years, though perhaps with slightly less honesty about who was really responsible for the wrong turn.

The evening brought a walk down to the nearest pebble beach, where the water was that particular Adriatic clarity that makes you want to apologise to your local swimming pool. We found a konoba nearby, sat under an awning with grilled fish and a bottle of Posip, and I caught myself doing that thing where you try to imagine living somewhere permanently based on approximately four hours of experience. It is a ridiculous habit, and I do it every single time. By the second glass of wine I had mentally relocated, learned Croatian to a conversational standard, and developed strong opinions about local olive oil. My partner, who knows this routine, nodded along with the particular kindness of someone who has seen it before.

That first night I slept better than I had in months, the kind of deep, unjustified sleep that comes from exhaustion and relief and the particular silence of a place where the loudest sound is a distant fishing boat. I woke to sunlight on those tile floors and the realisation that I had left our washing on the balcony and a family of cats had investigated it with what I choose to believe was respectful curiosity. Another small mishap. Another thing to laugh about, eventually, once I had retrieved my socks from their various new locations.

I suppose what I am saying is that first impressions are rarely the polished things we imagine they should be. Our arrival was messy, ridiculous, and entirely ours, and I would not have had it any other way. The apartment became familiar quickly, as good places do. The balcony became our morning coffee spot, the lavender bush became a sort of mascot, and the goat, mercifully, remained a single-encounter story. But that first day, with all its chaos, set a tone of gentle absurdity that carried through everything that followed. Travel, I was reminded, is not about arriving perfectly. It is about arriving at all, slightly dishevelled, and finding that the place accepts you anyway.