I have never been brilliant with ferries, and the one from Split to Brac did nothing to improve my record. There I was, hanging out of the car window like an overexcited labrador, trying to film the dolphins someone claimed to have spotted, when my phone slipped clean through my fingers and bounced off the wing mirror. It survived. My dignity did not. The teenagers in the back seat have not let me forget it, and that was day one, hour one.

We were bound for Sutivan, a little village on Brac's north coast that I had convinced myself was some undiscovered gem. In reality I suspect half of northern Europe had already discovered it, but arriving in late afternoon with the sun dropping behind the hills, I genuinely did not care. The place looked like someone had painted it for a postcard and then accidentally made it better. Stone houses climbing up from a bay so blue it seemed almost rude. My wife gave me that look, the one that means "you actually got something right for once."

The property sat on a gentle slope above the village, close enough to hear the sea if you stood on the terrace and held your breath, which I did, and immediately felt like a fool. A traditional Dalmatian stone house, thick walls, green shutters, the sort of place that smells of lavender and old timber before you even open the door. I had promised everyone an authentic experience. What I had not promised was the authentic experience of me trying to reverse a hire car up a narrow lane designed, apparently, for goats with good spatial awareness.

The owner met us at the gate, a woman called Marija who spoke excellent English and possessed that particular Dalmatian gift of making you feel like a long-lost relative without quite crossing into overfamiliarity. She showed us round while I tried to look like someone who regularly stays in charming stone cottages rather than someone whose usual holiday involves a Premier Inn near a retail park. The kitchen had terracotta tiles and a proper fireplace. The bedrooms had wooden beams so low that I, being generously proportioned, spent the entire week with a permanent stoop. My son measured the clearance at one point. Seventy-three centimetres. I am considering having it tattooed on my forehead as a warning.

What struck me first, beyond the beauty of the thing, was the chaos it invited. Within an hour we had shoes in three rooms, swimming costumes draped over ancient stone walls, and someone had already broken a terracotta pot that looked older than my grandmother. Marija had left us local wine and olive oil, and I immediately knocked the wine bottle with my elbow while gesticulating about dinner plans. It did not break. I am calling it a miracle. My wife is calling it luck that will not hold.

The terrace became our headquarters. Morning coffee with the sun climbing over the hills, evening grill attempts with me pretending I know how to manage a charcoal fire. I do not. The neighbours must have seen me fanning flames and cursing in a mixture of English and misremembered Croatian phrases. They were too polite to comment. We ate late, as you do there, fish from the harbour market, tomatoes that actually tasted of something, bread that demanded proper butter and got the local olive oil instead.

I kept catching myself standing still, which I never do at home. Just standing on that terrace with a drink, watching the light change over the water, listening to my family argue about whose turn it was to refill the ice tray. The simplicity of it got me, I suppose. No grand excursions planned, no pressure to see everything. The village itself provided enough wandering for days, little streets that dead-ended into views of the sea, a harbour where old men played cards with the intensity of international poker champions.

By the third evening I had developed a routine I am almost embarrassed to admit. Early swim, slow breakfast, read something I would never touch at home, attempt to cook something ambitious, fail graciously, eat it anyway with more of that wine. My children, who normally communicate exclusively through screens, actually played cards one evening. I have photographic evidence. They deny it ever happened.

The mishap with the ferry set a tone I did not appreciate at the time but recognise now. This was never going to be a polished holiday, a curated experience. It was always going to be me knocking things over, mispronouncing place names, burning the fish slightly. The cottage absorbed it all, the stone walls indifferent to my incompetence, the terrace offering its view regardless of whether I deserved it.

I think that is what I will remember. Not the dolphins I failed to film, but standing barefoot on warm stone with my family around a table, everyone slightly sunburned and overfed, arguing about nothing important. The gentle rhythm of a place that asks nothing of you except that you slow down enough to notice it. I am not naturally good at slowing down. Sutivan made a decent attempt at teaching me, and for one week at least, I was almost a willing student.