I have never been so grateful to see a set of stone steps in all my life. After a three-hour drive from Split Airport, most of it spent navigating winding coastal roads while my other half confidently insisted the sat nav was "definitely wrong this time," we finally rolled into Omis. The town clings to the mouth of the Cetina River like it is hanging on for dear life, all terracotta roofs and limestone walls glowing in the late afternoon sun. Beautiful, absolutely. But I was mostly fixated on the fact that I needed a wee, a coffee, and possibly a small lie-down, in that order.

The mishap, because there is always one with us, came during the final fifty metres. Our holiday home sat up a steep pedestrian lane, which meant parking at the bottom and hauling cases up what felt like a thousand steps. I grabbed the wheeled suitcase, my partner took the bags, and we began our ascent. About halfway up, the wheel caught on a loose cobble. The case flipped. Out tumbled my carefully packed clothes, a bottle of sunscreen that promptly exploded across everything, and worst of all, the pork neck steaks I had insisted on buying from a roadside farm shop twenty minutes earlier. They skittered down three steps and landed in a puddle of questionable origin. I stood there, hands on hips, watching meat juice mingle with factor fifty, and genuinely considered whether I could just live in the car for the fortnight.

A local woman hanging washing overhead shouted something down that I choose to believe was sympathetic. Probably laughing. Fair enough, I would have laughed too.

The house itself redeemed everything. A proper stone Dalmatian affair with wooden shutters and a terrace that looked straight out over the river canyon. I stood there with my lukewarm airport coffee, finally horizontal, and felt the particular smugness of someone who has survived their own stupidity. The kitchen was compact but serious about its intentions. Proper gas hob, decent knives, a fridge that actually chilled things. I immediately forgave the puddle steaks and started planning.

That first evening, we walked down to the waterfront promenade, thighs still burning from the steps. Omis at dusk is something else. The river turns molten, locals stroll with that unhurried Mediterranean pace, and the smell of grilling fish drifts from every other doorway. We found a konoba, one of those family-run places with checked tablecloths and a grandfather figure tending a wood-fired grill. I ordered the black risotto, because when on the Dalmatian coast, you eat squid ink and you do not complain about the teeth situation afterwards. My partner had prawns buzara, swimming in garlic and wine, and we shared a bottle of local Plavac that cost less than a London gin and tonic.

The next morning, I was up early for the market. The Pazar, tucked behind the main square, is small but fierce. Old women in black sold tomatoes that actually smelled like tomatoes, which feels rarer than it should. I bought a string of figs, some suspiciously soft cheese from a man who spoke no English but communicated entirely through gestures and samples, and a paper cone of cherries that stained my fingers for days. The fish stall had sardines so fresh they still had that bright-eyed look of mild surprise. I intended to grill them simply, Croatian style, with olive oil and lemon.

Back at the house, my cooking attempt was ambitious if not entirely successful. The sardines stuck to the grill pan despite my best oiling efforts. I served them with a salad of market tomatoes and that soft cheese crumbled over the top, plus bread from the bakery on the corner that opens at six and sells out by nine. We ate on the terrace with our feet up, picking stray bones from our teeth, and I decided that slightly mangled home cooking in a place like this beats a perfect restaurant meal anywhere else.

The pub scene in Omis is not really pub scene at all, which took some adjusting. Instead there are pavement bars where old men play cards and drink loza, the local grappa that strips paint and dignity in equal measure. I tried it once, felt my eyebrows grow back immediately, and stuck to Karlovacko beer thereafter. There is a place near the river mouth, nothing more than plastic chairs and a fridge, where the barman makes his own walnut liqueur and insists everyone try it. We went three times. Purely for research.

By day four I had established a routine. Morning coffee on the terrace, then down to the bakery for burek or some still-warm kifla. A slow wander through the market for whatever looked good, which was everything. Lunch was often just bread and cheese and those figs on the terrace, too hot to contemplate cooking properly. Dinner became a negotiation between another konoba and another attempt at the grill. I got better at the fish. The prawns I never quite mastered, always slightly overcooked, but we ate them anyway with more of that cheap excellent wine and the sound of the river below.

One evening, walking back from a particularly long dinner of grilled octopus and blitva, that Dalmatian staple of chard and potatoes, I stopped on the steps and looked back at the town. The fortress on the hill was floodlit, the river dark and moving. My legs still hurt from the initial case incident. I still had no idea what that soft cheese was actually called. But I knew exactly where to get bread in the morning, which stall had the best cherries, and that the barman with the walnut liqueur would be there with his cards and his stories. Some holidays you remember for the sights. This one, I suspect, I will remember for the meals, the markets, and the particular pleasure of cooking badly in a beautiful place with nowhere else to be.