I have never been more grateful for a sat nav in my life, nor more tempted to throw one into the Adriatic. The journey to our Fazana Peroj holiday home had been going swimmingly until I decided I knew better than the nice lady telling me to turn left. "Shortcut," I announced confidently to my partner, who immediately adopted the expression of someone who has heard this before. Twenty minutes later we were bouncing down a track that seemed to lead exclusively to olive groves and regret. A farmer waved cheerfully as if lost English tourists were a daily amusement. We were, I suspect, the midday entertainment.

When we finally found the property, tucked down a quiet lane between Fazana and Peroj, I was ready to kiss the gravel driveway. The house itself was exactly the sort of unpretentious Istrian stone building that makes you feel instantly settled. Terracotta roof, wooden shutters, a small garden with a barbecue that looked like it had witnessed decades of attempted cookery. I loved it immediately. My partner loved that I had stopped swearing at the sat nav.

The kitchen, we discovered, was surprisingly well-equipped for a holiday let. This was fortunate because I had grand plans. The Pula market, just a few miles away, had been my research obsession for weeks. We drove there the next morning, still slightly giddy from our arrival, and I proceeded to buy approximately three times more produce than two people could reasonably consume. Fresh prawns from the nearby waters. Istrian ham that the vendor sliced with theatrical precision. A wheel of cheese that I insisted we needed despite having no plan for it. My partner raised an eyebrow at the artichokes. "You don't know how to cook artichokes," she said. This was true. I bought them anyway.

That evening I attempted what I grandly called "Istrian fusion," which mostly meant grilling everything and hoping for the best. The prawns were genuinely magnificent, simply done with garlic and local olive oil that tasted nothing like the supermarket stuff at home. The artichokes were an education. An education in humility, mainly. We ended up eating the edible bits and composting the rest, while I made mental notes to actually research vegetables before purchasing them with such enthusiasm.

The local konobas became our salvation and our social life. In Fazana itself we found a place where the owner seemed genuinely surprised we wanted a menu, then simply brought what he thought we should eat. Grilled fish, naturally. Some kind of bean stew that I have since tried and failed to recreate. House wine in unlabelled bottles that tasted of sunshine and possibly magic. We went back three times. By the third visit he greeted us like old friends, which in my book is the highest achievement of any holiday.

Peroj had its own rhythm, slower and more residential. We found a small bar where locals gathered for morning coffee, standing at the counter in that very European way that makes sitting down feel like a tourist affectation. I tried to blend in. I failed. The barman found this amusing and gave us an extra pastry "for the effort." We took to buying our bread there daily, becoming briefly regular in a place where everyone else had been regular for decades.

The barbecue at our property saw action most evenings. I developed what I considered a signature approach: buy whatever looks good at the market, apply fire, serve with olive oil. It was not sophisticated. It was absolutely delicious. We ate outside every night, watching the light change over the garden, drinking wine that cost less than a London coffee, and arguing companionably about whether we could actually live like this permanently.

My partner pointed out that permanently would require employment, and that my artichoke incident suggested certain domestic limitations. Fair enough. But for two weeks, in this particular corner of Istria, with its markets and its konobas and its patient locals watching tourists attempt their way of life, I felt completely and properly fed in every sense that matters.