I'd left Split airport with what I optimistically called "a plan" and what my partner called "wishful thinking." The hire car was too small, the sat nav was in Croatian, and I'd confidently turned onto a road that was, in fact, someone's driveway. A man in a vest and flip-flops emerged from an olive grove, watched me execute a seventeen-point turn, and said nothing beyond a slow nod that somehow conveyed both pity and amusement. I waved apologetically. He lit a cigarette and continued watching until I was fully out of sight. I like to think we bonded.

The approach to Makarska proper is where the Central Dalmatian Riviera begins to show off. Mountains rising straight from the sea like they've got something to prove, the water doing that particular shade of blue that makes you suspicious of Instagram filters. We wound down through pine-scented switchbacks, me gripping the steering wheel with the relaxed posture of someone who has made peace with their mortality.

Our place was up a steep lane, the sort that Croatian builders seem to design specifically to test British drivers who haven't used a clutch properly since 2003. I stalled twice. A woman leaning from her balcony shouted something that sounded encouraging but was probably mockery. I chose to interpret it as warm local colour.

The key handover was handled by Branko, who appeared to be approximately seventy and moved with the unhurried purpose of a man who has never once checked his email. He showed us round the property with minimal words and maximum pointing, pausing significantly at the outdoor grill as one might pause at a family altar. "You cook fish," he said. It was not a suggestion. He then produced a bottle of rakija from nowhere, poured three glasses without asking, and told us about his nephew in Zagreb who had apparently made poor life choices involving a woman and a scooter. We never got the full story. Branko left with the rakija bottle, which I realised too late was not a gift.

That evening we walked down to the harbour, which took longer than anticipated because I kept stopping to pretend I wasn't winded. The seafront was doing its evening promenade thing - elderly couples in matching tracksuits, teenagers on benches performing elaborate disinterest, a man selling corn from a cart who called me "my English friend" despite no prior introduction. I bought corn I didn't want because his sales technique was essentially relentless eye contact and the word "fresh" repeated with increasing intensity.

We ate at a konoba where the waiter, who introduced himself as Goran within four seconds, refused to give us menus. "I tell you what you eat," he announced, then proceeded to argue with himself about whether the squid was better today or merely good. He settled on "acceptable" with the air of a critic damning with faint praise. The squid was magnificent. Goran accepted this verdict with a shrug that suggested he'd known all along and was testing our discernment.

Walking back up that hill in darkness, full of acceptable squid and local wine, my partner observed that I'd spoken more Croatian in three hours than I'd managed French in fifteen years of school visits. I started to defend myself, then remembered the driveway incident, the stallings, the corn transaction. Some holidays teach you things about yourself you'd rather not learn. Mostly that you're a man who can be sold corn through eye contact alone.

I slept that first night with the shutters open, listening to distant music from somewhere down the coast, smelling pine and salt and someone else's barbecue. Branko's rakija sat warm in my chest. Somewhere, I was certain, the man in the vest was still watching, still nodding slowly, still judging. He was probably right to.