I should have known our Split holiday was off to a classic start when I confidently marched up to the wrong villa in Gornja Podstrana, jiggled the key in the lock for a good two minutes, and only realised my error when a very confused Croatian gentleman opened the window and politely asked if I needed help. Turns out our actual place was three doors down, nearly identical but crucially not his. My wife found this absolutely hilarious. My teenage daughter pretended she didn't know me. Standard family holiday energy, really.

The drive down from Split Airport had been gorgeous enough to make me forgive myself, at least temporarily. The D8 coastal road clings to the hillside like it was designed by someone who really enjoys dramatic reveals, and every bend offered another glimpse of the Adriatic doing that impossible blue thing it does. We'd stopped at a Konzum in Podstrana village for supplies, which mainly consisted of me buying far too much prsut and my wife sensibly grabbing actual vegetables and bread. The teenager acquired three flavours of Croatian crisps and immediately declared them "research."

Gornja Podstrana sits just above the main coastal strip, and you feel it immediately - that slightly elevated remove from the bustle, the gardens doing their best with lavender and olive trees, the odd chicken making commentary from a neighbouring property. Our villa, when I eventually located the correct one, had a terrace that looked straight down toward the sea with that hazy middle-distance where the water meets the sky and you can't quite tell where one stops. I stood there with a beer, still slightly pink from the airport mishap, and felt the particular weight of a proper holiday beginning.

The pool was smaller than it looked in photos, naturally, but absolutely fine for floating about while arguing about dinner plans. My daughter discovered the outdoor grill and immediately appointed herself "fire manager," a role she took extremely seriously despite having never successfully lit a barbecue in her life. The first evening involved a lot of her waving matches about while I tried not to intervene too obviously. We ate slightly charred cevapi at half past nine, which is basically Croatian dinnertime anyway, and felt terribly continental.

What struck me most about those first hours was the particular rhythm of the place. The morning heat building slowly, the afternoon stillness when even the insects seem to take a break, the evening breeze that arrives like clockwork. We didn't rush to do anything. My wife read her book on the terrace. I made increasingly ambitious claims about walking down to the beach the next morning, knowing full well I'd probably just move to a different terrace chair. The teenager posted pool photos with mysterious captions.

Podstrana's main beach strip is only a few minutes down the hill, but from up in Gornja Podstrana you feel properly removed in that way that makes you commit to the villa life. You embrace the slightly wonky outdoor shower, the kitchen drawer that doesn't quite close, the evening ritual of deciding who walks to the small local shop for more beer. It's not polished luxury. It's better than that, somehow.

By day two I'd already established my role as "person who makes morning coffee and stares at the sea thoughtfully." My wife had claimed the hammock for afternoon reading. The teenager had perfected her floating technique and developed strong opinions about which pool float was superior. We hadn't done any of the obvious Split activities yet - no Diocletian's Palace, no Marjan Hill walks, nothing remotely cultural. And honestly? We were absolutely fine with that. The wrong-villa incident already felt like ancient history, or at least a story for dinner parties back home.

There's something about that first proper day of a villa holiday, isn't there? The unpacking chaos settling into temporary order, the discovery of which local wine is actually drinkable, the slow realisation that you've got a whole week of precisely nothing demanding your attention. I kept catching myself planning to check work emails, then remembering I genuinely didn't need to. The sea glittered away down below, indifferent to my small domestic triumphs.

We did eventually make it to the beach, and to Split proper, and to all the sensible tourist things. But those first lazy hours in Gornja Podstrana, slightly sunburnt and overfed and gloriously unproductive, set the tone for everything that followed. Sometimes the best holiday moments are the ones where you're not doing anything at all, just existing in a place that isn't home, getting the villa key situation slightly wrong and laughing about it over grilled meat as the light fades.