I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I managed to leave my passport in the glove compartment of the hire car at Split Airport. There I was, standing at the rental desk with the sort of fixed grin you give when you have just done something spectacularly stupid, while my other half performed the slow blink of a man questioning his life choices. Forty minutes and a brisk jog across two car parks later, we were finally winding our way down the coastal road towards Trogir Seget Vranjica, and I had already earned enough goodwill debt to last the fortnight.

The property sat perched on a gentle slope above the Adriatic, all terracotta roof and cream walls catching the late afternoon sun. But I am getting ahead of myself, because the real magic of that first day happened entirely by accident. In my flustered state, I had punched the wrong coordinates into the sat nav, and instead of the direct route, we found ourselves threading through narrow lanes that grew progressively more improbable. The tarmac gave way to gravel, then to something that might generously be called a track. Olive branches scraped both sides of the car simultaneously. My other half gripped the door handle with white knuckles and said nothing, which was somehow worse than shouting.

Then the lane opened up without warning into a tiny cove, no more than fifty metres of shingle tucked between rocky outcrops. A single wooden fishing boat was drawn up on the stones, and an old man in a faded cap sat mending nets with the unhurried precision of someone who had never once checked a smartphone. We had stumbled upon something that felt secret, almost stolen. There was no sign, no car park, no ice cream van. Just the clear water and the rhythmic click of the old man's wooden needle. We stayed twenty minutes, not wanting to intrude, and left without speaking much, as if noise would break the spell.

Back on track, we reached the property as the light was turning golden. The owner, a cheerful woman called Marija, showed us around with generous gestures and broken English that somehow conveyed everything necessary. The terrace looked out over the channel towards Ciovo Island, and I could already tell that most evenings would end there with a glass of something local and the particular silence that comes from being somewhere properly away from it all.

The next morning, still jet-lagged and wakeful at six, I went for what was meant to be a short wander to find coffee. I took a left where I should have taken a right, following a path that climbed behind the property through terraced gardens. Fig trees heavy with unripe fruit overhung the way, and somewhere a dog barked with the lazy half-interest of a creature already warm in the sun. The path forked, forked again, and before I knew it I was properly lost in the best possible sense.

I emerged at a small chapel, its stone walls covered in what I later learned was centuries of lichen and local legend. No one was there. The door stood open, and inside smelled of beeswax and old wood. A single candle burned, though whether from recent worship or the caretaker's morning rounds I could not say. I sat on the step and watched a gecko dart across the wall, feeling that particular contentment of having nowhere to be and no one expecting you.

The coffee, when I finally found my way back to something resembling civilisation, tasted all the better for the delay. I have been on holidays where every hour was scheduled, every restaurant researched and reserved. This was not going to be one of them. The passport mishap, the wrong turn, the wandering feet that refused the direct route, they had all conspired to teach me something I keep needing to relearn. The best moments arrive unplanned, found in the spaces between intentions, discovered only by those willing to be slightly, happily lost.