The drive from Kalamata airport to Leventochori was going swimmingly until I confidently ignored the sat nav and decided I knew a shortcut. Forty minutes later, I found myself on a dirt track between two olive groves, staring at a goat that seemed personally offended by my presence. The goat won that staring contest. I reversed three hundred metres of increasingly narrow track, sweating profusely, and arrived at the villa with dust coating the hire car and what remained of my dignity.

The property itself appeared like a mirage above the village, all whitewashed walls and terracotta tiles clinging to the hillside. My first thought, embarrassingly, was that I had accidentally booked somewhere far too nice for someone who had just been outsmarted by livestock. The key was in a lockbox, which I fumbled with for an embarrassing length of time before realising I had been entering the code backwards.

Stepping inside, the coolness hit me first, then the smell of pine from the wooden ceiling beams. The kitchen opened onto a terrace that made me actually say "blimey" out loud to absolutely no one. The Ionian Sea stretched below, that particular blue that makes you suspect Greece has been keeping the best colours for itself. I dumped my bags and immediately got lost again, this time wandering down a path behind the villa that I assumed led somewhere sensible. It did not. It led to a small chapel with a rusted gate and a view so unexpectedly perfect that I sat on a rock for twenty minutes, slightly bewildered by my own good fortune.

The next morning, determined to explore properly, I set off on foot towards what I thought was the village centre. I missed it entirely. The road forked, I took the left option with unearned confidence, and found myself descending through ancient olive terraces that clearly had not seen a tourist in decades. The path became a track, the track became stones, and I was genuinely considering whether I could survive on wild figs when I stumbled upon a tiny cove. No beach, exactly, just smooth pebbles and water so clear I could count the fish. A single fishing boat was pulled up, nets drying, owner presumably somewhere having a siesta. I swam in my clothes because I had not brought proper kit, and emerged feeling like I had discovered something no one else knew about, which of course countless locals absolutely did.

Getting back took two hours of creative navigation involving a friendly grandmother who spoke no English but communicated through emphatic pointing, and a dog that decided to escort me halfway. I arrived at the villa sunburned, slightly limping, and utterly delighted.

That evening, I walked to the actual village, which I had somehow circled completely. Leventochori itself is small, unhurried, the sort of place where the taverna owner brings you what he has rather than what you ordered, and you are better off for it. I ate grilled octopus that had probably been swimming that morning, drank wine that came in an unlabelled jug, and watched the sun set over the same sea I had failed to navigate earlier.

The mishaps, I realised, were the whole point. The goat, the wrong turns, the unplanned cove, the grandmother's directions, they had given me something no itinerary could. I had come expecting a villa holiday with a view, and accidentally found something far better: the particular joy of being slightly lost in a place generous enough to reward it.