I have never been so grateful for a sturdy pair of walking boots in all my life, and I say that as someone who once wore flip-flops to a wedding. The journey to Theologos had been one of those classic British holiday beginnings: up at four in the morning, a flight where the person in front reclined their seat before we even left the tarmac, and then the hire car fiasco. I had booked what I thought was a sensible compact vehicle. What I got was something that looked like it had been designed for a clown circus, complete with a gear stick that came off in my hand at the first roundabout outside Thessaloniki. There I sat, holding this plastic wand of automotive disappointment, while a Greek lorry driver leaned on his horn with the kind of sustained enthusiasm usually reserved for football matches.

By the time I reached Theologos, a small village on the mainland where pine forests tumble down towards the Aegean, I was ready to collapse into something horizontal and stay there for approximately a fortnight. The property itself was one of those charming stone houses that look effortlessly rustic in photographs and turn out to be genuinely rustic in person, by which I mean the front door had character. By character, I mean it stuck. I spent a good five minutes shoving at it with my shoulder, convinced I had the wrong house, before it suddenly gave way and I stumbled inside with the grace of a drunk giraffe. The owners had left a lovely note and some local wine. I immediately poured a glass and stood on the terrace, watching the light fade over the hills, feeling rather pleased with myself. This was the life. Walking tomorrow, definitely. Perhaps a substantial hike. I had read about trails through the surrounding forests, paths that wound up to viewpoints where you could see for miles across the blue.

I woke to rain. Not British drizzle, the sort of polite precipitation that lets you pretend it is not really happening, but proper Greek mainland rain that came down with commitment and volume. The terrace became a small lake. My substantial hike shrank in ambition to a stroll to the village bakery, where I stood dripping and pointing at spinach pies while a small dog judged me from the doorway. The woman behind the counter seemed entirely unsurprised by my appearance. I suspect she had seen many British walkers before.

The following day brought sun of such intensity that I understood immediately why the ancients worshipped it. I set off with tremendous purpose, following a marked trail that climbed through olive groves and into the pine-scented hills above the village. The path was stony and occasionally disappeared entirely, requiring a certain amount of confident blundering. I blundered with great confidence for about two hours, reaching a ridge where the view genuinely stopped me in my tracks. The sea lay below like something painted, and the mountains rolled away in hazy layers. I sat on a rock, ate a slightly squashed cheese sandwich, and felt that rare satisfaction of having earned your lunch through vertical effort.

Then the weather turned again. A wind came from nowhere, bringing clouds that moved with theatrical speed. One moment I was basking; the next I was scrambling down a slope that had become unexpectedly slippery, while thunder rumbled somewhere behind me. I have never moved so quickly in walking boots. I arrived back at the house just as the first proper drops fell, smug and breathless and soaked only from perspiration rather than precipitation, which felt like a victory of sorts.

The pattern established itself over the week. Morning walks in reasonable conditions, afternoons of dramatic meteorological uncertainty. I learned to set out early, to carry more water than seemed sensible, and to never trust a clear sky entirely. One morning I walked to a nearby beach, a pebbled cove where the water was so clear you could count the stones beneath your feet. Another day I attempted a longer circuit that the guidebook described as moderate, which in British walking terms means bring a packed lunch and tell someone where you are going. I told no one, got slightly lost in a forest of identical pines, and spent an interesting forty minutes following what I thought was a path but was actually a goat track. The goats, when I encountered them, seemed unbothered by my presence. I found my way back by walking downhill until I hit something recognisable, which is not a navigation strategy I would recommend but which worked on this occasion.

There was something rather humbling about it all, I found. I had arrived with plans, with routes marked and distances calculated, and the weather had simply laughed at me. Not unkindly, but definitely laughed. I walked less far than intended, more often than planned, and in conditions that varied so dramatically I stopped checking forecasts entirely. Yet I saw more because of it: the village in morning mist, the sudden appearance of wildflowers after rain, the quality of light when clouds break over the sea. The walking became less about achievement and more about paying attention, which sounds like something from a motivational poster but happened to be true.

On my final morning, I woke to perfect stillness and a sky of embarrassing blueness. I walked the shortest route, down to the harbour and back, slowly, knowing I was leaving. A fisherman was mending nets. The same small dog from the bakery watched me pass with what I choose to believe was newfound respect. My boots, which had served me through rain and shine and one memorable moment of goat-related panic, were finally properly broken in. Typical, I thought. Just when everything was working, it was time to go home.