I'd left the sat-nav on "shortest route" rather than "fastest," which is how we ended up on a track so narrow that olive branches were actually scraping both wing mirrors at once. My wife was gripping her seatbelt like it was a rollercoaster restraint, the kids had gone suspiciously quiet in the back, and I was doing that fixed grin thing where you're pretending everything's absolutely fine while secretly praying a local in a Fiat Panda doesn't come the other way.

We'd flown into Split, picked up the hire car, and were aiming for Vodice, that little coastal town in northern Dalmatia where we'd booked a stone cottage through Novasol. The photos had shown terracotta roofs, a proper outdoor grill, and a terrace that looked made for evening wine. I may have described it to my wife as "rustic charm with actual functioning plumbing," which she found less reassuring than intended.

The track finally spat us out onto proper tarmac, and there it was: our home for the week, tucked among pines with the sort of weathered stone walls that make you feel like you've stumbled into someone's grandmother's garden. A ginger cat was already inspecting our arrival from a wall, clearly unimpressed. The owner, a woman called Marija, emerged wiping her hands on an apron and speaking that rapid coastal Croatian that sounds like it's being chased by something.

She showed us round with the efficient pride of someone who's done this a thousand times. The kitchen had those slightly sticky wooden drawers that never quite close. The shower demanded a specific wrist action to get anything above lukewarm. There was a proper fireplace for cooler evenings and, crucially, that terrace with its view down through trees towards the sea, hazy and blue in the afternoon heat.

The kids immediately claimed the twin room with the squeaky bunk bed. My wife opened the fridge and made that small satisfied noise women make when they find actual shelf space. I stood on the terrace with a beer I'd been saving since the airport, feeling smug in the way only a man who's survived a terrible driving decision can feel.

That evening, we walked the ten minutes down to Vodice harbour for pizza. The town was doing that lovely Adriatic thing where everything feels slightly worn-in and comfortable, like a good pair of shorts. Tourists ambled about, locals sat on benches discussing football with the intensity of geopolitics, and our children discovered that Croatian lemonade hits different when you've spent the day travelling.

Back at the cottage, we attempted a barbecue using the traditional stone grill in the garden. I say "we" - I stood there with tongs looking purposeful while smoke blew directly into my face regardless of wind direction. The sausages were charred in that way that makes children suspicious and adults philosophical. We ate on the terrace as darkness came on properly, the pine trees making their soft night noises, someone distant playing music that drifted up from another garden.

My daughter asked if we could stay forever, which is how you know the journey mishap has been forgiven. My wife caught my eye with that look that said she'd noticed too. I'd chosen the wrong sat-nav setting, panicked on a track barely wide enough for goats, and somehow delivered us here: this slightly chaotic, perfectly imperfect stone cottage where the shower needs negotiation and the cat has adopted us without consultation.

Some holidays you plan meticulously. Others, you take the wrong turning and find something better waiting. I'm not saying I'll be deliberately getting lost in future, but there's something to be said for olive branches against your wing mirrors if they lead you somewhere the lemonade tastes like this.