I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when our sat nav tried to send us through what appeared to be someone's olive grove. There we were, bumping along a track near Nafpaktos, my partner Dave gripping the hire car door handle like his life depended on it, while I insisted the turning was "definitely just up here." It was not just up there. It was, in fact, several kilometres back the other way, past a very unimpressed goat and a chap on a scooter who looked at us with the kind of pity usually reserved for lost tourists. Which, to be fair, we absolutely were.

By the time we actually found Skaloma, I had developed that particular brand of British stoicism where you pretend everything is fine while quietly sweating through your shirt. The property sits on the Greece Mainland coast, and the first thing that struck me was how the place seemed to shimmer in the afternoon heat, all whitewashed walls and terracotta roof tiles against that impossible blue of the Gulf of Corinth. I stood there with my hand still on the car door, momentarily forgetting my navigational shame.

Then came the mishap. In my eagerness to get inside and locate the nearest cold drink, I managed to trip on the single step leading to the entrance. Not a dramatic fall, thank goodness, but enough to send my shoulder bag flying across the terrace. Out tumbled my sunglasses, a half-eaten packet of plane biscuits, and inexplicably, a single slipper that I had apparently been carrying around since Corfu three years prior. Dave, helpful as ever, simply stood there laughing while a light breeze scattered biscuit crumbs across the stone tiles. I lay on my back looking up at a bougainvillea trailing pink flowers against the sky and thought, well, this is one way to make an entrance.

The owner, a lovely woman named Eleni who appeared from next door, seemed entirely unfazed by the spectacle. She helped me up with the practised air of someone who has witnessed many a British holidaymaker's graceless arrival. She spoke excellent English, thankfully, because my Greek extends to "hello," "thank you," and accidentally ordering three coffees when I only wanted one.

Stepping inside proper, the cool of the villa was immediate and glorious. The place had that particular Mediterranean smell of clean stone and something faintly herby, perhaps oregano from the garden. The living area opened onto a terrace with views that made my earlier humiliation almost worth it. Almost. I could see right down to a pebble beach where a few locals were swimming, and beyond that the water stretched to the Peloponnese peninsula on the horizon. Dave handed me a proper cold drink, finally stopped laughing, and we stood there in silence for a moment.

I will admit something here. I had worried this kind of self-catering property might feel a bit sterile, a bit too "holiday let" and not enough "holiday." But Skaloma had personality. The kitchen had actual cookbooks in Greek, a coffee pot that looked like it had made ten thousand cups, and a bowl of fresh lemons on the counter that Eleni said we should help ourselves to. The bedrooms were simple but spotless, with shutters that actually worked and mosquito nets that looked like they had seen genuine combat.

That first evening, we walked the ten minutes down to the little beach we had spotted, still in our travel clothes, still slightly dazed. I paddled in water so clear I could see my own pale feet looking back at me, ridiculous and English against the stones. We ate bread and tomatoes from the little shop in the nearby village, sitting on our terrace as the light went golden and then pink and then that deep blue that makes you understand why the Greeks have so many words for the colour.

I thought about my sat nav failure, my bag explosion, my general inability to arrive anywhere with dignity. But sitting there with tomato juice running down my wrist and Dave trying to work out how to light the barbecue, I realised this was exactly the kind of messy, real arrival that makes a place stick. No smooth airport transfer and seamless check-in could have given me that first evening, that particular combination of embarrassment and wonder.

The goat, I suspect, has forgotten us entirely. I have not forgotten the goat.