I have never been so relieved to see a washing machine in my life. Three hours earlier, at Split Airport, I had confidently hoisted my suitcase onto the luggage carousel to retrieve it, only to watch in horror as the zip gave way and my entire summer wardrobe performed a slow-motion striptease for the assembled passengers of flight BA2674. There is a special kind of British shame that comes with chasing your own pants around a baggage reclaim hall while Croatian families try very hard not to laugh.

By the time our hire car wound through the Kastela strip, I had managed to re-zip the case using three hair bobbles and a level of denial that would impress a politician. My wife was maintaining a diplomatic silence. The children had adopted that particular glazed expression that means they are either deeply traumatised or mentally rewatching YouTube. Possibly both.

The Trogir Kastela property announced itself with a cheerful cream facade and shutters the colour of faded terracotta, which I later learned is basically the official colour palette of Central Dalmatia. I had worried our place might feel too polished, too rental-brochure perfect. Instead, the garden gate stuck slightly, the lavender bushes were doing their own thing in a charmingly unkempt way, and someone had left a pair of flip-flops by the outdoor shower that definitely predated our arrival by several holidaymakers.

The first thing you notice, stepping into the courtyard, is the smell. Not the sharp chemical hit of a hotel pool, but something warmer - jasmine climbing a trellis, the faint salt whisper from the sea somewhere below, and what I can only describe as hot stone. The kind of hot stone that has been baking since May and will continue baking until October with the kind of commitment I wish I brought to my own job.

I had grand plans for our arrival. Unpack methodically. Stock the fridge with local produce from the Kastela market. Perhaps a civilised glass of wine on the terrace while the children explored responsibly. What actually happened was that my youngest discovered the outdoor kitchen area and immediately began a one-child campaign to cook something, anything, using the built-in grill and a collection of pebbles she had been saving since the airport. My eldest vanished into the pool with the efficiency of a seal released back into the wild. My wife located the washing machine and made a noise that I can only describe as spiritual.

I stood in the courtyard with my compromised suitcase and a warm bottle of Karlovacko, watching the sun drop behind the Kastela hills. Somewhere in the distance, a neighbour was playing what I presumed to be Croatian folk music, though it might have been Croatian reggae - my ear is not sophisticated enough to tell. A cat appeared from nowhere, judged me silently, and disappeared under a bougainvillea.

The thing about a place like this, I realised, is that it does not care about your plans. It does not care about your airport humiliation or your organisational ambitions. It offers you a hammock that sags in exactly the right way, a view of olive trees that have been there since before your grandmother was born, and the absolute certainty that someone will forget to close the mosquito netting tonight and we will all pay for it tomorrow.

By eight o'clock, the children had somehow acquired ice cream despite my not having moved from this spot. The grill was smoking in a way that suggested my wife had found her purpose. The cat had returned with a friend. I was still in my airport trousers, slightly stained, entirely defeated, and more content than I had been in months.

Tomorrow we might attempt Trogir old town, or that pebble beach the guidebook mentioned, or simply see how long we can make a loaf of bread and some Dalmatian ham last in the garden. Tonight, I am listening to my daughter explain to a lizard why it cannot attend her pebble barbecue, and I am thinking that perhaps the best holidays are the ones that begin with your pants on a conveyor belt and end with you too relaxed to care.