I have never been brilliant with directions, and my first attempt at finding our holiday let in Omis Duce proved this beyond all doubt. We had flown into Split, collected a hire car that smelled faintly of pine air freshener and regret, and set off down the coastal road with the sort of confidence that only comes from having glanced at Google Maps precisely once. The Central Dalmatian Riviera was doing its best to distract me, all glittering Adriatic on one side and rugged Biokovo mountains on the other, and somehow I missed the turning not once but twice. The third pass, my wife was reading the instructions aloud with the careful patience of someone explaining technology to their grandmother. We found it eventually, down a narrow lane where bougainvillea scrambled over stone walls and an elderly gentleman sat on a plastic chair watching the world go by with the commitment of a professional spectator.

The property itself was one of those traditional Dalmatian stone houses that look effortlessly charming in photographs and somehow manage to be even better in person. Terracotta roof, wooden shutters, a small terrace where grape vines had been trained overhead to make dappled shade. I was already picturing myself with a glass of local wine, looking contemplative, perhaps even interesting. This fantasy lasted approximately four minutes, which was how long it took me to discover that I had packed my son's swimming trunks, my daughter's favourite book, and somehow nobody's phone chargers. The cottage chaos had begun before we had even unpacked the car.

Inside, the place had that particular smell of old stone and recent cleaning that I associate with proper holidays, the ones where you actually slow down rather than rushing about ticking off sights. The kitchen was compact but well-equipped, which mattered because we had grand plans about cooking fresh fish from the local market and eating together on that terrace. These plans would later be compromised by my complete inability to judge when squid is properly cooked, but that first evening we were still optimistic. We flung open the shutters to let in the warm air and the sound of distant church bells, and my daughter immediately claimed the bedroom with the better view while my son investigated whether the television had any football channels.

What struck me most about those first hours was the particular rhythm of the place. Down at Duce beach, which was only a short stroll away, families were already packing up for the evening, shaking sand from towels with the practised efficiency of people who do this every day. The water was that impossible turquoise that photographs never quite capture, and the pine trees came right down to the shore in places, casting long shadows and filling the air with their scent. We wandered down in our still-travelled clothes, too eager to wait for proper swimming costumes, and let the children paddle while we stood at the water's edge feeling the relief of arrival.

That first night, we ate too much prsut and cheese from the nearby konoba, drank wine that cost less than a London coffee, and watched the children finally crash from the combination of heat and excitement. I sat on the terrace after everyone else had gone to bed, listening to the cicadas and the occasional murmur of voices from neighbouring houses, and felt that particular holiday feeling of being slightly outside your ordinary self. The mishaps of the journey already seemed funny rather than frustrating. Tomorrow there would be the market to explore, the Cetina river to consider, perhaps a boat trip if we could organise ourselves. But for that moment, there was just the warm stone beneath my feet and the satisfaction of having arrived somewhere that already felt, against all my usual scepticism, a bit like coming home.