I have never been so grateful for a pair of walking boots in my life, and I say that as someone who once wore flip-flops to a wedding. The drive from Split Airport to our holiday let in Tugare, just above Omis on the Central Dalmatian Riviera, had been the sort of journey that makes you question every life choice that led you to rent a car with suspect air conditioning in thirty-degree heat. My partner, ever the optimist, had insisted we take the scenic route. The scenic route, it turned out, involved a sat nav that thought "road" meant "ambitious goat track."

The mishap came precisely three minutes from our destination. I spotted what I believed to be a shortcut down to Omis itself, a charming little path that looked perfectly walkable from the car window. I did not get out and inspect it. This was my first error. My second was suggesting we park and "just nip down to see the beach before check-in." Reader, we nipped. We nipped straight into a thicket of maquis shrubland that seemed personally offended by our presence. Twenty minutes later, scratched, sweating, and with a twig somehow in my pocket that I still cannot explain, we emerged onto an actual path, looked up, and realised our hire car was now a vertical concern somewhere above us. We walked back up the proper road in what I can only describe as a dignified shuffle. My partner did not speak to me for the remainder of the approach, which was awkward because the villa was lovely and I had nobody to tell.

The place itself, when we finally arrived properly, was worth every indignity. A traditional stone house with that particular Dalmatian architecture that makes everything feel ancient and purposeful. Terracotta roof, wooden shutters, the works. I stood on the terrace with a cold drink and forgave myself entirely. The view down to Omis and the Cetina River gorge was the sort that makes British people stand in silence for uncomfortable lengths of time, unsure whether to comment on the beauty or make a joke about the parking situation.

We had plans, of course. Grand walking plans. The kind you make while scrolling through hiking apps in rainy Britain, imagining yourself as some kind of Mediterranean adventurer. The Omis Riviera is criss-crossed with paths, from coastal strolls to serious treks up into the Dinara mountains. I had researched them extensively. I had downloaded maps. I had purchased, and I am not proud of this, a walking pole.

The weather, naturally, had other ideas. Not the Croatian weather, you understand, which remained stubbornly, beautifully consistent. No, it was the British weather we carried with us, that peculiar meteorological pessimism that sees a cloudless morning and thinks, "Yes, but what if it turns?" For three days we woke to perfect sunshine and spent the first hour debating whether it was "too hot for a proper walk" or whether we should "wait until it cools off." By the time we decided, it was too hot for a proper walk. We would stroll down to Omis instead, potter about the pirate fortress, eat grilled fish, and feel faintly guilty about our lack of exertion.

On day four I rebelled. The forecast, checked obsessively on three apps, suggested a mere thirty-two degrees with "low humidity." Low humidity! In Dalmatia! This was practically an invitation from the gods. We set off on the path to Fortica, the fortress above Omis, at eight in the morning, which I considered almost aggressively early. The climb was magnificent and brutal in equal measure, switchbacks through pine forest that smelled of resin and heat. We reached the top triumphant, consumed our entire water supply in fourteen minutes, and then noticed the clouds building over the mountains. Not Croatian clouds, I told myself. British clouds. Imaginary clouds. They were not imaginary. We descended in a hurry as thunder rolled somewhere inland, making it back to the villa precisely as the first drops fell.

The storm lasted twenty minutes. The path was dry an hour later. We had spent the afternoon indoors, me reading a novel I did not enjoy out of stubbornness, my partner giving me looks that said everything about the walking pole purchase. That evening we walked the gentle coastal path toward Nemira instead, the sort of stroll that requires no apps, no poles, no meteorological anxiety. The sunset turned the Adriatic the colour of a proper British ale, and I finally understood something about holidays that I suspect I should have learned decades earlier. The walking was never the point. The being there was the point. The boots, the maps, the grand plans, all of it was just a way of convincing yourself you had earned the stillness.

We did manage one proper trek later in the week, up through Tugare's own hillside paths to a viewpoint that made Fortica look like a gentle warmup. I carried the pole and used it exactly twice, both times for swatting at insects. The weather held, mostly. I stopped checking apps. My partner started speaking to me again, though she still occasionally mentions the thicket incident with a particular tone that suggests it will be referenced at significant family gatherings for years to come.

I left Croatia with scratched legs, a questionable tan line from my walking socks, and a newfound appreciation for paths that actually exist. The Central Dalmatian Riviera had been patient with us, had waited while we faffed and worried and carried our weather with us like a particularly unnecessary piece of hand luggage. I would go back tomorrow, though I might leave the pole behind. And I would definitely check any shortcut twice.