I have never been so relieved to see a man in rubber boots as I was when I finally staggered into Fazana with my suitcase wheel hanging off like a wounded limb. The mishap, you see, had happened three hours earlier at Pula bus station, where I had confidently marched past my stop while arguing with a Croatian grandmother about whether her bag of dried figs counted as hand luggage. It did, apparently, and I ended up walking the last stretch into Fazana in the July heat, wheel dragging, dignity in tatters.

The man in boots was Branko, who turned out to be the neighbour at my holiday let, the NP Brijuni place just back from the harbour. He was watering his tomatoes with the focused intensity of a cardiac surgeon, and without looking up he said, "You are the English. I smelled you coming." I chose to take this as botanical commentary on my exertion rather than personal criticism. He nodded toward the house, told me the key was under a ceramic frog that looked nothing like a frog, and returned to his tomatoes. I would come to learn that Branko's tomatoes were the most discussed vegetables in western Istria.

The NP Brijuni itself was one of those solid, unpretentious Istrian houses that know exactly what they are. Terracotta roof, shutters that actually shut, a terrace where you could sit with wine and watch the boats without anyone watching you back. I found the frog, which resembled a lumpy mushroom, and let myself into cool tile-floored peace. The kitchen smelled faintly of lavender from the previous guests, and someone had left a handwritten note in three languages wishing me good fishing. I do not fish, but I appreciated the democratic assumption.

By evening I had met Marija from two doors down, who materialised with a bowl of something she called "just squid" that turned out to be a three-hour labour of love involving wine, garlic, and what she described as "patience I no longer have for my husband." She sat with me on my terrace, refusing wine because she had already had her two glasses at noon, and delivered a running commentary on everyone passing below. The man with the small dog was "rich but cheap." The woman in the yellow dress had "a voice like a seagull with grievances." I laughed until my ribs hurt, and she patted my hand and said, "You laugh like my cousin who moved to Canada. Too loud, but sincere."

The next morning brought Zlatko, who ran the little konoba near the harbour and had apparently been briefed by Branko that fresh English blood was in town. He insisted I try his grappa at ten in the morning, "for the mosquitoes," though there were none, and told me about his twenty years working in Germany making car parts. "I came back for the olive oil," he said, as if this explained everything, which perhaps it did. He had the weathered hands of someone who had touched too many machines and now touched only food, and he moved through his tiny kitchen with the satisfaction of a man who had chosen correctly, finally.

What struck me, sitting there with my coffee and Zlatko's grappa and Branko's tomatoes visible over the fence, was how these encounters had already become the holiday. The NP Brijuni was comfortable, certainly, with its proper shower and that terrace I was already possessive about. But the house was merely the stage. The performance belonged to these people who had no particular reason to be kind to a sweating Englishman with a broken suitcase, yet could not seem to help themselves. Marija had returned that morning with fig jam, "because you need fattening." Branko had left three perfect tomatoes on my doorstep without a note, which was practically a novel from him.

I thought about my usual holidays, the ones where I ticked sights off lists and photographed cathedrals I could not later identify. This was different. This was being seen, being fed, being teased. There was no performance in it, no tourism infrastructure. Just Zlatko's grappa politics and Marija's seagull assessments and Branko's silent vegetable diplomacy.

By my third evening, I found myself talking to the ceramic frog as I retrieved my key, thanking it for its service. Branko, watering at dusk, did not look up but his shoulders shook. I had become, I realised, another local eccentric. Another story for Marija to tell over someone's squid. The NP Brijuni had given me walls and a bed, but Fazana had given me something rarer: temporary citizenship in a place that asked nothing in return except that you show up, slightly broken, and be willing to laugh too loud but sincere.