I have never been so grateful to see a set of house keys in my life, and that includes the time I locked myself out of my own flat in February wearing nothing but a towel. The journey to Opatija Poljane had been one of those travel experiences that starts with misplaced optimism and slowly unravels into a comedy of errors, the kind you laugh about later but definitely not at the time.

It began with the car hire at Rijeka Airport, where I confidently declined the sat nav because, and I quote myself here like the absolute fool I am, "I've got Google Maps, what could possibly go wrong?" The answer, delivered with perfect timing by the Croatian mountain roads, was everything. Within forty minutes I was hopelessly tangled in a one-way system somewhere above Lovran, clutching a steering wheel and muttering apologies to a queue of remarkably patient local drivers. My phone, that traitorous rectangle of false confidence, had cheerfully announced it was "recalculating" for the seventh time before losing signal entirely somewhere near a vineyard that looked identical to the previous five vineyards.

The mishap that truly defined my arrival, though, was the coffee. Desperate for caffeine after the early flight, I had purchased a takeaway cappuccino at a petrol station near Matulji. This cup of liquid ambition sat in the cup holder, wobbled through hairpin bends, and finally launched itself in spectacular fashion as I misjudged a steep driveway that turned out not to be my driveway. I spent five valuable minutes dabbing at my trousers with petrol station napkins, achieving nothing except spreading the stain into a shape that resembled, I later decided, a very rude map of Italy. I arrived at the property looking less like a relaxed holidaymaker and more like someone who had lost a fight with a very small but determined espresso machine.

The first glimpse of Opatija Poljane itself, however, stopped my internal complaining mid-sentence. The villa sits with that particular confidence of Croatian coastal architecture, white walls and terracotta against green hillside, the kind of view that makes you forget you are wearing your mistake. I stood in the driveway, coffee-stained and slightly trembling from the mountain roads, and actually laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. The Kvarner Bay glittered below, properly glittered, that specific Adriatic blue that photographs never quite capture, and I felt the particular relief of someone who has made a complete mess of their arrival but somehow landed in exactly the right place regardless.

The key safe required three attempts, each accompanied by increasingly theatrical cursing that I am certain carried to neighbouring properties. When the door finally opened, the interior delivered that wonderful holiday rental smell of clean linen and distant sea air. I dumped my bags with the grace of a collapsing wardrobe and made straight for the terrace, because priorities are priorities even when you look like modern art.

Standing there with a proper coffee finally in hand, watching boats drift across the bay towards Opatija itself, I had one of those small moments of clarity that holidays sometimes gift you. The messy journey, the sat nav betrayal, the coffee incident that would become family legend, none of it mattered now. I had arrived chaotic and slightly ridiculous, which if I am honest is my default setting, and the place had welcomed me anyway. The afternoon light was turning golden across the water, somewhere distant a church bell marked the hour, and I realised I had already stopped checking my phone for directions because there was absolutely nowhere else I needed to be.

I stayed on that terrace until the sky shifted through colours I lack the vocabulary to describe properly, watching the lights of Opatija begin to twinkle across the bay like someone had scattered a handful of stars onto the hillside, and decided that sometimes the worst arrivals make the best beginnings.