I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Trogir Seget Donji did not disappoint. We had flown into Split, picked up our hire car, and were feeling rather pleased with ourselves until I confidently directed my wife down what I insisted was a shortcut. It was not a shortcut. It was a farm track, and within minutes we were axle-deep in dust, surrounded by olive groves, with a goat giving me what I can only describe as a knowing look. Forty minutes, some creative language, and one very patient Croatian farmer later, we finally found the proper road and arrived at our holiday home as the afternoon sun was doing its best work.

The place itself was lovely, all terracotta and white walls with a terrace that looked out towards the water. We dumped our bags, still slightly dusty from my navigational triumph, and decided the only sensible response to the morning's chaos was a walk. The lady who had handed over the keys mentioned a coastal path towards Trogir old town, about twenty minutes on foot. Perfect, I thought. Stretch the legs, clear the head, perhaps find an ice cream to restore marital harmony.

We set off in high spirits, me in proper walking shoes and my wife in sandals she later described as optimistic. The path started beautifully, winding along the shoreline with pines on one side and the clearest water I have seen outside of a travel brochure on the other. The Adriatic was doing that thing where it shifts between turquoise and deep blue depending on where you stand, and I was already composing my triumphant social media post about finding paradise.

Then the weather turned. Not dramatically, not with thunder or anything cinematic. Just a steady, determined greying of the sky, followed by a wind that seemed to come from precisely the direction we were walking towards. Within ten minutes my proper walking shoes were full of rainwater, and those optimistic sandals were making a squelching sound that my wife found considerably less amusing than I did. We sheltered under a pine tree that offered roughly the same protection as a wire colander, watching our peaceful stroll transform into something more closely resembling a minor survival exercise.

We turned back. There is a particular humility in abandoning a walk you have only just begun, especially when you have made such a production of being the prepared one with the sensible footwear. We squelched home, passed the goat who I swear recognised the car, and spent the remainder of that first afternoon on the covered terrace with tea and the biscuits we had brought from home, watching the rain make patterns on the water.

The next morning dawned suspiciously bright. We tried again, this time with waterproofs stuffed in a bag and considerably lowered expectations. The same path, now steaming gently in the early heat, delivered everything it had promised the day before. We walked all the way to Trogir's old town, crossed the bridge with the morning sun warming the stone, and sat with coffee watching the boats in the harbour. That evening we attempted a shorter local loop through the olive groves behind Seget Donji, which was peaceful until another weather front arrived and sent us hurrying home again, laughing this time, already familiar with the routine.

By the end of the week we had developed a system. Mornings for longer walks when the weather held, afternoons for shorter explorations with retreat always possible, evenings on the terrace with wine and the sound of cicadas. We never did manage a full day of walking without some meteorological interruption, and I never did live down the farm track incident completely. But there was something rather British about the whole enterprise, I reflected one evening, watching another squall blow across the water. We had come to Croatia for sunshine and adventure, and found instead a holiday defined by damp excursions, strategic retreats, and the particular satisfaction of drying out properly with a good view.

I would not have changed it, not really. Though I did buy my wife proper walking sandals before our next trip, and I now check maps with the thoroughness of a man who has been judged by livestock.