I have never been so grateful for a sat nav with a sense of humour as I was driving down to Duga Uvala Mali Vareski. Three hours after leaving Pula airport, convinced I was taking the scenic route, I found myself on a track so narrow that a goat blocked my path for a solid ten minutes. The goat, I later learned, was called Branko. I know this because an elderly chap emerged from an olive grove shouting "Branko! Branko!" with the exasperation of a man who had performed this ritual daily for fifteen years. He waved me through with a grin that suggested my predicament was the highlight of his Tuesday.

The villa itself appeared like a reward for my patience. Perched above Duga Uvala bay, it had that particular Istrian charm of weathered stone and terracotta that makes you feel instantly pretentious for owning a house with standard PVC windows back in Sheffield. I was still marvelling at the pool when my neighbour appeared over the wall. Marija, seventy-odd, armed with a basket of figs and absolutely no patience for my attempts at Croatian.

"You English," she said, thrusting the figs at me. "Always lost. Always grateful." She told me she had lived in the neighbouring hamlet since before Yugoslavia became a trivia question, and that she watched every arrival with the dedication of a retired spy. Within twenty minutes I knew which previous guests had argued about money, which ones had sunburned themselves into hospital visits, and which German couple had tried to pay her for guided tours she never offered.

The local shop, I discovered, was less a retail experience and more a social club with a till. Ivan behind the counter spoke in paragraphs that assumed intimate knowledge of everyone within ten kilometres. Buying bread and olive oil became a forty-minute interrogation about my marital status, my opinions on Croatian football, and whether I understood that his cousin in Rijeka had invented a new type of fishing lure. I bought three bottles of local Malvazija purely because refusing seemed socially impossible.

That evening I walked down to the rocky cove below the villa, the one the property description had modestly called "nearby beach access." A fisherman called Darko was packing his boat for the night. He spoke English with the particular cadence of someone who learned it from American films but refused to commit to the accent. He showed me his catch with the pride of a man who had outsmarted creatures with brains the size of peas, then offered me a slug of rakija that nearly removed my eyebrows.

"Your first time?" he asked, though it was barely a question. "You have the face." I chose not to enquire what face exactly. He told me about the bay in winter, when the tourists vanish and the remaining locals become almost aggressively communal, sharing firewood and gossip with equal generosity. I found myself envying that version of life while simultaneously knowing I would complain about the inconvenience within a fortnight.

By the time I climbed back up to the villa, slightly rakija-wobbly and carrying fish Darko absolutely would not let me pay for, I understood something I had not expected. The place was lovely, the pool was inviting, the view would feature heavily on my Instagram. But the holiday was already being written by the people who happened to be there, the Marijas and Ivans and Darkos, the Brankos even, all performing their daily rituals with a patience for interruption that I suspect I do not possess at home.

I sat on the terrace watching the last light on the bay and ate figs that tasted of someone else's generosity. Tomorrow I would probably get lost again, would certainly buy more wine than I needed from Ivan, and would definitely wave at Branko if our paths crossed. Some holidays give you what you booked. This one, already, was giving me something I had not thought to request.