I have never been so relieved to see a set of traffic lights as I was when we finally crawled into Crikvenica after what felt like fourteen hours in a hire car that smelled faintly of wet dog and regret. The sat-nav had taken us on what it optimistically called a "scenic route" through the mountains, which translated to me gripping the passenger seat while my partner Nigel navigated hairpin bends with the confidence of a man who once parallel-parked successfully in 2003. The funny mishap came when we finally spotted our villa, perched up in Grižane, and I leapt out to take a photo of the view, only to realise I had been sitting on Nigel's sunglasses for the entire journey. They now sit on the dashboard as a permanent memorial to my bottom's destructive power.

The villa itself was everything the pictures promised and more, but I will be honest, my first thought was not the stunning Kvarner Bay stretching below us, nor the charming stone terrace. It was the kitchen. Specifically, the barbecue, and the fact that I had spent the previous evening in a supermarket in Rijeka buying what I believed to be "local essentials" but which turned out to be three types of identical-looking cured meat and a jar of something pickled that I still cannot identify. Nigel looked at my shopping with the expression he usually reserves for my attempts at DIY, which is to say, loving concern mixed with quiet despair.

Our first evening, we did what any sensible British couple would do. We found the nearest konoba, which turned out to be a ten-minute wander down towards Crikvenica's waterfront, and let someone who actually knew what they were doing feed us. The place was called something unpronounceable, staffed by a man who communicated entirely in gestures and the occasional booming "Dobar dan!" We ate pršut that melted on the tongue, octopus salad that made me reconsider my lifelong suspicion of tentacled foods, and drank local Žlahtina wine that went down far too easily for something that strong. I tried to ask about the fish market in Crikvenica, using my phrasebook Croatian and a lot of pointing. The waiter nodded enthusiastically and brought us more wine, which I took as a successful exchange.

The next morning, armed with proper coffee and a mild headache, we tackled the market proper. Crikvenica's morning market is a glorious chaos of shouting, sampling, and me trying to work out whether I was buying cheese or soap. I came away with tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, which sounds like a low bar until you remember British supermarkets, plus olive oil from a woman who insisted I taste it from her own wooden spoon. Nigel got chatting with a fisherman about sardines, or possibly about football, the conversation was largely hand-based. We spent far too much money and left grinning like idiots with bags cutting into our wrists.

That evening I attempted to cook. The villa kitchen is genuinely well-equipped, which only made my failure more embarrassing. I had planned grilled fish with market vegetables, a simple homage to our konoba experience. What I produced was fish that was somehow both raw and burnt, vegetables that had gone from crunchy to mush in seconds, and a smoke alarm situation that brought Nigel running with a tea towel. We opened more wine, scraped the edible bits onto plates, and ate on the terrace as the sun went down. It was, objectively, a mediocre meal. Subjectively, with that view, that company, and the memory of the market that morning, it tasted absolutely perfect.

We have been here four days now. I have cooked three more times, each slightly less disastrous. We have found a local pub where the barman knows our order, a bakery that does burek that I would honestly consider marrying, and I have finally learned to identify at least two of my cured meats correctly. The pickled mystery jar remains unopened. Some things, like Nigel's sunglasses, are best left as they are.