I have never been more grateful for a sat nav than I was driving down the Dalmatian coast towards Makarska, though I will admit it nearly sent me into the sea at one point. There I was, humming along to some dreadful Croatian pop radio, when the thing announced a "sharp left" that would have put me straight onto a beach and into the lap of a rather surprised sunbather. I carried on, found the proper turn, and eventually wound my way up to the holiday home with slightly shaky hands and a newfound appreciation for roundabouts.

The property itself sat perched on the hillside with one of those views that makes you forget you nearly became a maritime incident. Terracotta roofs, the Biokovo mountains rising behind, and the Adriatic stretching out like someone had spilled blue paint everywhere. I dumped my bags, opened the fridge, and found it gloriously empty. This, I decided, was both a challenge and an invitation.

The next morning I marched down to Makarska's market with the confidence of someone who absolutely could not cook. The pazar, as they call it, was already humming by eight o'clock. Old women in black sat behind pyramids of tomatoes that actually smelled of something, bunches of wild asparagus, bottles of honey with combs still inside, and cheeses that looked like they'd been made in someone's bathtub. I bought too much of everything, naturally, convinced I was going to transform into some sort of Dalmatian domestic goddess.

My first attempt at dinner was what I can only describe as a learning experience. I had the fresh prstic, those tiny fish you fry whole, plus some blitva, which is essentially Swiss chard and potatoes and the backbone of every Dalmatian grandmother's repertoire. The fish turned out fine, if you ignored the fact I set off the smoke alarm and had to fling open every window while waving a tea towel like a surrender flag. The blitva went grey. I ate it anyway, standing on the terrace with a glass of Posip from the supermarket, watching the ferries slide past towards Brac. It tasted of pride and stubbornness, mostly.

The local konobas, those traditional taverns, became my guilty relief. There was one down near the harbour where the waiter brought me prsut, that Dalmatian prosciutto, sliced so thin you could read through it, with cheese from Pag that tasted like the island itself, all herbs and salt and wind. I went back three times. They started recognising me, which I pretended to find embarrassing but secretly loved.

I did try cooking again, with mixed results. The fish market at dawn was an education, men shouting prices, octopus slithering about in crates, someone offering me something I still cannot identify. I bought squid, determined to make black risotto, and spent the entire afternoon scrubbing ink from my fingernails and the kitchen tiles and somehow my left ear. The risotto itself was actually decent, jet black and slightly terrifying, though I did manage to overcook the squid into something with the texture of an old rubber band. I ate it on the terrace anyway, feeling absurdly pleased with myself, the mountains going purple behind me as the sun dropped.

The bakery near the old town became my morning ritual. Burek with cheese, still warm, eaten on a bench watching the promenade fill with pensioners power-walking in tracksuits. I tried making my own one afternoon, got the filo pastry stuck to every surface including the ceiling, and decided some traditions are best left to people who know what they are doing.

By my final evening I had settled into a comfortable rhythm. A simple pasta with the tomatoes that actually tasted of summer, some olive oil I had watched being pressed at a little place just outside town, garlic that made everything worthwhile. Nothing complicated, nothing grey. I sat there with my supermarket wine, my smoke-alarm-free kitchen, and felt genuinely sad to be leaving. I had come expecting to be a tourist, and instead became someone who argued with fishmongers, who knew which bakery opened first, who had a favourite table at a konoba where they did not laugh too hard at my pronunciation.

The sat nav tried to kill me one more time on the way back to the airport, naturally. I did not even flinch.