I have never been so grateful for a pair of waterproof trousers in my life, and I say that as someone who once wore them to a wedding by mistake. The journey to our Vrsar Funtana holiday home began with the sort of optimism that only a British person looking at a ten-day forecast can muster. Sun, sun, more sun, and perhaps a light breeze. I packed accordingly: one pair of walking boots, three t-shirts, and a sun hat that made me look like a mushroom.

The drive from Pula Airport took about forty minutes, winding through olive groves and past villages that looked like they had been arranged by a particularly tidy child. We found our turn-off easily enough, then immediately drove past it twice because the satnav had apparently decided to have a little lie-down. The villa itself sat at the end of a rough track, surrounded by pine trees and the kind of silence that makes you realise how loudly you breathe.

I flung open the car door with theatrical holiday enthusiasm, straight into a puddle that came up to my ankle. The waterproof trousers, still folded neatly in my suitcase, suddenly seemed like the most foolish omission since I forgot to pack pants for a weekend in Brussels. My partner helpfully noted that at least I had worn sandals, which meant the water could drain out. Small mercies.

The first evening brought clearing skies and a walk down to the rocky coastline, perhaps ten minutes on foot. The path threaded through maquis scrub, all woody herbs and the occasional lizard doing press-ups on warm stones. We reached the water as the light turned gold, the limestone cliffs glowing like something from a tourism brochure that I would normally distrust. The Adriatic lay flat and impossibly blue, and I stood there in damp socks feeling rather pleased with myself despite everything.

The next morning I woke to grey. Not British drizzle-grey, but a proper determined sky that looked as though it had settled in for the duration. We had planned a long coastal walk to Vrsar proper, following the marked footpaths that cling to the shoreline between the two villages. The guidebook called it "moderate," which in British walking terminology means anything from "pleasant stroll" to "bring a rope and say your goodbyes."

We set off anyway, because we are British and this is what we do. The path started promisingly enough, weaving through low scrub with glimpses of the sea below. Then the rain arrived, not dramatically but with the steady commitment of someone who has nowhere else to be. Within twenty minutes my supposedly breathable jacket had surrendered. Water found its way down my collar, up my sleeves, and somehow into my left pocket where it turned a packet of tissues into papier-mache.

We sheltered under a pine tree that offered roughly the same protection as a wire colander. A local fisherman passed on the track below, wearing a vest and looking dry. He nodded with the resigned sympathy of someone who has watched many optimistic tourists learn about Istrian weather the hard way. I waved back with the enthusiasm of the drowned.

The walk back took on a certain grim comedy. Every rock had become slick, every patch of red soil now determined to relocate onto my calves. We abandoned the coastal path for the quicker inland route, a gravel track that cut through vineyards and past smallholdings where fig trees dripped onto abandoned agricultural machinery. Somewhere a dog barked with the half-hearted energy of something that had also decided today was not its finest.

By the time we reached the villa, the sun had emerged. Of course it had. Steam rose from the terrace tiles as I stood there, squelching slightly, watching clouds dissolve into nothing above the pines. My partner produced two beers from the fridge and we sat on the covered veranda, dripping and laughing in that particular way that comes from shared mild suffering.

That evening we walked again, because the weather had turned soft and warm, and because I had found my waterproof trousers. The same path, the same coastline, now transformed into something almost embarrassingly beautiful. The wet limestone gleamed white against dark sea, and the air smelled of warmed rosemary and recent rain. We went further than planned, past the little coves where locals keep small boats, all the way to Vrsar harbour where we ate grilled sardines and watched the last light fade behind the offshore islands.

I have thought about that first rainy walk more than I expected to. There is something about being thoroughly unprepared, about the gap between what you packed for and what you received, that makes a place stick in the memory. The sunshine days that followed were perfect in their way - morning hikes through the forest paths above Funtana, afternoon swims in water so clear it felt like floating in air - but it is the sodden morning I return to, the ridiculousness of it, the way we kept going because the alternative was admitting defeat to a cloud.

The villa became our base for a week of these explorations, some dry, some less so. We learned to check the sky before setting out, to carry layers despite the forecast, to accept that Istrian weather in late spring has opinions of its own. On the final day we walked the coastal path once more, dry this time, and I found myself almost disappointed by the lack of drama. Almost.

I still have the mushroom sun hat. It sits in a cupboard now, waiting for the next optimistic forecast.