I have never been brilliant at reading maps, which is how I found myself trying to park a hire car down a footpath barely wide enough for a determined goat, convinced I had arrived at our Makarska holiday let. My partner sat in the passenger seat making that particular face he does when he is trying very hard not to say "I told you so," which he had indeed told me, repeatedly, back at Split Airport when I waved off his suggestion of using the sat nav. Twenty minutes of reversing in increasingly creative angles, one slightly scratched wing mirror, and a cheerful local chap leaning on his fence who found the whole spectacle deeply entertaining, and we finally located the actual driveway. I have rarely been so pleased to see a proper tarmacked surface in my life.

The property sits on the slopes above Makarska town, and stepping out of the car at last, I understood immediately why people bother with the hire car faff. The garden spreads out before you like someone has painted it deliberately to soothe frayed nerves. Olive trees, that silvery-green colour that seems to glow in the Dalmatian light, and terraces of lavender and rosemary that release their scent when you brush past. I stood there still clutching the offending map, breathing it in, while my partner began unloading cases with the quiet satisfaction of a man who knows he has won the navigation argument for the remainder of the holiday.

The first morning, I woke to nothing more demanding than deciding which corner of the garden looked most inviting for a cup of coffee. This is not a holiday of rushing about. The pool sits at the lower terrace, nothing flashy, just properly refreshing water and loungers positioned for maximum sun exposure and minimum movement. I brought three books I had been meaning to read since approximately 2019. On day one, I managed twelve pages before dozing off. On day three, I finished one entirely and started feeling rather smug about my literary revival, until I realised I could not actually recall the plot in any detail. Something about a murder, possibly. The heat does something to your retention.

There is a covered terrace with a proper outdoor kitchen, and we fell into the laziest possible rhythm of simple meals. Morning trip to the Makarska market for tomatoes that actually taste of something, fresh bread, local cheese, perhaps some prsut if we are feeling extravagant. Back by mid-morning, and then honestly, very little happens until evening. I have never been so dedicated to the art of horizontal living. The garden has different characters throughout the day: morning shade under the olive trees, fierce afternoon sun by the pool, then that lovely golden hour light on the upper terrace where we would eventually rouse ourselves to open wine and watch the sun drop behind the Biokovo mountains.

I did walk down to the town once, a steep twenty-minute wander that I treated as genuine exercise to justify the subsequent inactivity. Makarska itself is pleasant enough, the harbour promenade, ice cream, that sort of thing. But I found myself hurrying back up the hill, eager to reclaim my lounger and my undemanding paperback. There is something slightly embarrassing about realising you have become a person who actively prefers their holiday garden to actual cultural experiences, but I have decided to embrace it. The world will keep spinning without my thorough inspection of every Dalmatian church.

By the final days, I had perfected the art of doing absolutely nothing with genuine intention. No guilt, no restless checking of phones, just the slow pleasure of watching lizards dart across warm stone, of finishing a chapter without immediately needing to start another task, of proper afternoon naps that leave you pleasantly disoriented about what day it might be. We packed the car in a sort of daze, slightly sun-fried and thoroughly unwound, and I handed the map to my partner without a word of protest. Some lessons, apparently, do eventually stick.