I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong villa. There I was, standing outside a very confused family's terrace in Tugare, jiggling a key that definitely did not belong, while their Dalmatian gave me a look that said "not this again, mate." Turns out Omis Tugare has several nearly identical stone houses, and my phone battery had died somewhere between Split airport and me convincing myself I could navigate without Google Maps.

The actual villa, when I finally found it ten minutes later, was up a narrow lane that I had walked straight past twice. A local woman hanging washing pointed me toward it with the patient smile of someone who has watched many tourists achieve exactly nothing with their printed directions. I felt like a proper plonker, but her wave as I finally trundled my suitcase up the correct path made me feel instantly forgiven.

That first evening, still slightly mortified, I decided to wander without purpose rather than risk further navigational humiliation. The villa sits in the hills above Omis, and I simply followed a dirt track that seemed to lead nowhere in particular. The light was doing that golden Croatian thing, all honeyed and soft across the olive groves. I passed an elderly man tending vines who nodded but did not speak, which suited my mood perfectly.

The track ended at a small chapel I never would have found deliberately. Saint something-or-other, the name worn smooth by weather. The door was unlocked, which in Britain would mean teenagers had already been at it, but here it simply meant someone trusted the world a bit more than I was accustomed to. Inside smelled of cold stone and old wax. Someone had left fresh wildflowers in a jar. I sat on the step and watched the sun drop behind the Mosor mountains, feeling that particular ache of having accidentally discovered something too good for Instagram.

Next morning, determined to continue my theme of glorious incompetence, I set off for what I thought was a marked hiking trail. It was not. Within twenty minutes I was thoroughly lost in maquis scrub, scratched by rosemary and convinced every distant sound was either a snake or my own impending demise. The Adriatic glimmered below, entirely unhelpful, offering no clues about which direction might contain lunch.

I stumbled upon a clearing where someone had built a stone barbecue and rough wooden table, clearly used by locals for gatherings. Empty wine bottles sat in a crate as decoration rather than rubbish. A fig tree heavy with fruit overhung the space. I ate three, slightly ashamed of my theft but unable to resist the jammy sweetness. The seeds crunched between my teeth as I admitted to myself that getting lost was rather becoming the entire point of this holiday.

Finding my way back took two hours and involved descending through someone's olive orchard, where I was intercepted by a teenage boy on a scooter who simply pointed wordlessly toward the main road. I have never been more grateful for wordless pointing.

By day three I stopped even pretending to have plans. The villa's terrace became my morning base, drinking inadequate coffee and watching swallows trace impossible patterns. Then I would walk, deliberately choosing paths that looked unpromising. A concrete water tank led to a viewpoint no guidebook mentions. A dead-end lane delivered me to a woman selling honey from her kitchen window, the jars still warm from wherever she stored them. We conducted our entire transaction through smiles and pointing, my Croatian limited to "hvala" repeated with embarrassing frequency.

The mishap with the wrong villa never quite stopped being funny, mostly because I kept seeing that family around Omis. We developed a nodding acquaintanceship, the shared embarrassment having created something almost friendly. Their dog never warmed to me, which seemed fair enough.

I came to Tugare expecting beaches and boat trips, the obvious Dalmatian highlights. Instead I found a landscape that rewards the wandering and the slightly foolish, the ones willing to trust that a dirt track might lead somewhere interesting rather than nowhere at all. My scratched legs and fig-stained shirt testified to adventures I could not have planned if I tried.

On my final evening, I found the chapel again, this time on purpose, though I took two wrong turns getting there. Someone had replaced the wildflowers. I left my own small offering, a bit of bread from breakfast, feeling slightly pagan and entirely content. The mountains turned purple, then grey, then disappeared into stars. I thought about printing better directions next time, then decided against it.