I have never been so relieved to see a ferry in my life. After driving what felt like fourteen hours from Zagreb, complete with a wrong turn that took us through what I can only describe as a goat's front garden, we finally reached the port for Rab. My partner was navigating, I was doing the driving, and by some miracle we were still speaking to each other. The mishap? I had confidently announced we could skip the pre-ferry snack because "there will be loads of places to eat on the island." Reader, there were not. Not at half past ten at night, anyway. We boarded that ferry like two castaways who had spotted a ship on the horizon, stomachs growling loud enough to drown out the engines.

The property itself, a lovely stone house tucked into Rab's old town, was everything the photos promised and more. Exposed beams, terracotta floors, a kitchen that actually looked like someone cooked in it rather than just arranged lemons in a bowl for Instagram. My first impression, however, was dominated entirely by the realisation that we had precisely half a packet of digestive biscuits and some questionable travel sweets between us and starvation. The local shops were shut. The restaurants were shut. Even the cats looked at us with pity.

Morning broke with glorious sunshine and the sort of hunger that makes you philosophical. We found the market near the harbour by following our noses and a woman carrying a bag of fennel. What a place. Stalls heaving with tomatoes that actually smelled of tomatoes, bundles of wild asparagus, dried lavender, and anchovies so fresh they still seemed surprised to be there. I bought everything. Absolutely everything. My partner had to physically remove me from a cheese stall before I bankrupted us on Pag cheese, which the vendor kept shaving samples from with the enthusiasm of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

That first lunch was a triumph of overambition. I had watched the cheese man, I had seen fishermen cleaning their catch, I had smelled bread from a bakery that must have been baking since dawn. Surely I could recreate something magnificent? I could not. My attempt at a simple brodet went wrong somewhere between "add wine" and "wonder why it looks like dishwater." The bread was superb though, and we ate it with olive oil and a humility I had not previously possessed.

The local konobas saved us from my culinary experiments. We found one down a narrow street where the owner seemed genuinely baffled by tourists but warmed up when I attempted to pronounce "pršut" with what I thought was appropriate respect. He brought us lamb cooked under a peka, which is essentially a bell-shaped lid covered in embers, and it fell apart at the mere suggestion of a fork. We drank local Žlahtina wine, which I am still not pronouncing correctly, and stumbled home through medieval streets feeling like very fortunate people indeed.

I became obsessed with the bakery near the cathedral. Every morning I would emerge with some new discovery - burek with cheese, krostule that shattered into sugary nothing, rolls stuffed with Swiss chard that made me feel briefly virtuous. My partner pointed out that eating pastry for breakfast, lunch and dinner was not technically "experiencing local culture," but I felt strongly that it was.

Our final evening, I attempted the peka myself. The property had a proper outdoor fireplace, and I had befriended the butcher, the greengrocer, and a man who sold me wine in an unlabelled bottle with a wink. Six hours of slow cooking, several glasses of that winking wine, and a minor fire incident later, we sat down to something that actually resembled food. It was not as good as the konoba's. It was probably not even good. But we ate it on the terrace as the sun went down over Kvarner Bay, and I felt genuinely proud of my terrible cooking and my excellent holiday.

I still dream about that cheese.