I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I accidentally packed my partner's walking boots instead of my own. There we were, winding down through the Cilento hills with the Tyrrhenian Sea glinting ahead, and I realised I'd committed the cardinal sin of holiday packing: assuming all brown boots in the hallway were created equal. Hers were two sizes too small. I spent the last twenty minutes of the drive with my toes curled like a nervous ballerina, muttering that this was surely a sign from the universe.

The approach to Ogliastro Cilento itself did rather distract from my footwear crisis. The village sits perched above the coastline like something from a faded postcard, all pastel walls and terracotta roofs that seem to have been arranged by a particularly artistic toddler. Our holiday home was tucked up a narrow lane where the sat nav finally admitted defeat and suggested we "proceed with caution," which felt less like navigation advice and more like life coaching.

We arrived to find our host, a wiry gentleman called Enzo, waiting with a key and what I can only describe as theatrical patience. He'd clearly watched us crawl up the lane in our hire car, bumper kissing wall with millimetre precision. Before I'd even extracted myself from the driver's seat, he was inspecting my partner's boots with professional interest.

"Ah," he said, in that elongated Italian way that carries entire paragraphs of meaning. "You walk the Path of the Gods, perhaps?"

I confessed the truth about the boots. Enzo's face performed a symphony of emotions: confusion, amusement, then something approaching respect for the sheer absurdity of it. He disappeared into his own house and returned with a pair of sandals that looked older than most British landmarks. "My brother's," he announced. "He has the feet of a yeti. You will be comfortable."

The sandals were leather, worn to the shape of someone else's adventures, and they fit like they'd been waiting for me. I was still wearing them when we wandered down to the village bar that evening, a place called Bar Sport despite no sporting activity having occurred there since approximately 1987. The barman, a heavyset fellow with eyebrows like distressed caterpillars, spotted Enzo's handiwork immediately.

"Ah, Sandal Man," he declared, as if this were a known local phenomenon. "Enzo gives these to everyone. Last year, an Englishman with feet like boats. Before that, a German lady who cried about her blisters." He poured our drinks with the satisfaction of someone who'd witnessed many such pilgrimages. "You are part of the brotherhood now."

By the second evening, I'd become something of a village project. An elderly woman called Rosa, who sold tomatoes from her garden gate, insisted on inspecting my feet each morning. "Better," she'd announce, regardless of actual condition. "The leather knows you now." She refused payment for the tomatoes, accepting instead detailed reports on where I'd walked and what I'd seen.

The walks themselves were glorious, threading through olive groves where the trees looked like they'd been planted by patient giants centuries ago. I clopped along in my inherited sandals, passing locals who'd apparently been briefed on my situation. A man pruning vines simply nodded and called out, "Buon cammino, Sandal Man!" as if this were my official title now.

What struck me most was how the mishap had become the doorway to everything. Without the wrong boots, I'd never have worn Enzo's brother's sandals, never have become Sandal Man, never have received Rosa's daily tomato inspections with their accompanying life advice. The barman eventually confessed that he'd invented the "brotherhood" on the spot, just to see if I'd play along.

I played along magnificently, as it turned out. There's something liberating about becoming a minor local character, about having your holiday defined not by what you planned but by what you accidentally set in motion. On our final morning, Enzo appeared with a small package: a new pair of leather sandals, proper ones, sized correctly and everything.

"For next time," he said. "Though perhaps bring wrong boots again. It is tradition now."

I left Ogliastro Cilento with three pairs of footwear, a nickname I hadn't sought, and the certain knowledge that some of the best travel stories begin with a completely avoidable mistake.