I have never been so grateful for a sat nav with a sense of humour as I was driving down to Omis Jesenice. We had flown into Split, picked up the hire car, and promptly got ourselves lost in a one-way system that seemed designed by someone who really dislikes tourists. The small mishap came when I confidently reversed into what I thought was a parking space outside a konoba, only to discover it was actually someone's front patio. An elderly gentleman emerged from his house, surveyed the situation, and simply shook his head while muttering something that sounded deeply uncomplimentary. I did not need a translator.

By the time we actually found the property, I was ready to abandon the car and walk the rest of my life. But then the gates opened, and there it was: this solid, unpretentious stone house with shutters that had definitely seen better decades and a garden where someone had made a valiant attempt at organisation before apparently giving up and letting the lavender do whatever it pleased. I loved it immediately.

The key handover was handled by a woman called Marija, who arrived on a moped that sounded like an angry wasp and parked it with the confidence of someone who had been riding since before she could walk. She looked me up and down, took in my still-flustered appearance, and said something in Croatian that I later learned roughly translated to "you look like you've been arguing with the road." She was not wrong. Marija showed us round with the efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times but still managed to make it feel personal, pointing out that the outdoor shower worked best if you sang to it, which I assumed was a joke until I tried it later and she appeared absolutely right.

That first evening, we walked down to the nearest village shop for supplies. The man behind the counter, Ante, had the weathered look of someone who had spent forty years explaining to foreigners that no, he did not take euros, and yes, the kuna was still real money to him. I made the mistake of asking for "local recommendations" in my phrasebook Croatian, and he spent the next twenty minutes delivering what I can only describe as a comprehensive critique of every restaurant within walking distance, complete with dramatic hand gestures and occasional pauses to shout at passing neighbours through the open door. By the end, I understood perhaps thirty percent of the words but one hundred percent of the sentiment. He sent me off with a bottle of wine he had personally selected, which I suspect he would have done regardless of what I actually wanted.

The neighbour to our left appeared on our second morning, bearing figs from her tree and a dog that had clearly decided we were now its responsibility. She spoke no English whatsoever, and my Croatian extends to ordering beer and apologising for being English, but we managed a perfectly satisfactory conversation about the heat, the figs, and something I believe was her opinion on British cooking. She left with a jar of our marmalade, which she accepted with the polite suspicion of someone being offered an unusual gift by a stranger. I saw her later feeding it to the dog.

What struck me most about those first few days was how quickly the place stopped feeling like a holiday rental and started feeling like somewhere you might actually belong, if only temporarily. It was not the view of the Adriatic, though that helped, or the slightly wonky terrace furniture. It was the people: Marija checking in unannounced with fresh tomatoes, Ante's ongoing commentary on local affairs whenever I popped in for milk, the fig-bearing neighbour whose name I never quite caught but whose dog still visits daily.

I had arrived frazzled and slightly embarrassed, having parked on a man's patio and argued with a sat nav for the best part of an hour. I left, ten days later, with a bottle of Ante's wine, a bag of figs, and the distinct feeling that I had been thoroughly adopted by people who owed me absolutely nothing. Some places you visit; others, apparently, collect you.