I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I found myself trying to park a hire car in what turned out to be a fishmonger's loading bay in Cattolica, convinced I had arrived at our holiday flat. The proprietor, a splendid chap in a blood-stained apron, leaned out and explained through generous gestures that I needed to go two streets over and perhaps consider sat nav next time. My wife sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression she has perfected over fifteen years of marriage, the one that says she is choosing not to comment.

The actual property, when we finally located it, proved to be a tidy little place tucked into a residential pocket a short stroll from the lungomare. I had worried it might feel cramped with two children and a week's worth of luggage, but the layout was cannier than I expected. The kitchen opened onto a modest terrace where we would later consume alarming quantities of local wine while the children finally slept. That first evening, though, we simply dumped our cases and headed straight for the seafront, drawn by the familiar Adriatic smell of salt and frying seafood.

Cattolica's promenade does not pretend to sophistication, and I mean that warmly. It is broad, flat, and unashamedly geared towards families who want gelato before dinner, dinner to involve pasta shapes the children recognise, and perhaps a gentle evening stroll to aid digestion. We fell into this routine with embarrassing speed. The flat's location meant we could wander down in flip-flops, which felt like an achievement of sorts, a small liberation from the packed schedules we had left behind.

The flat itself had that particular Italian holiday rental quality of being slightly eccentric in its fittings. The shower required a degree in engineering to operate. The washing machine lived in a cupboard that opened only when the kitchen door was closed. I spent twenty minutes on our first morning working this out, growing increasingly convinced I was losing my mind, until my daughter casually demonstrated the necessary sequence as if everyone knew. There is something humbling about being outsmarted by an eight-year-old over a cupboard.

What struck me most, that first day, was the particular rhythm of the place. Morning brought the clatter of neighbours' shutters and the distant whir of mopeds. By mid-afternoon, the streets near the flat fell almost silent as people retreated for the riposo, that sensible Italian habit of avoiding the sun at its most brutal. We adopted this with embarrassing enthusiasm, retreating to the terrace with books we barely read, drowsy with heat and the particular satisfaction of doing very little.

I had worried about the children growing restless without organised entertainment, but Cattolica seems designed for this particular anxiety. The harbour, visible from the end of our street, provided sufficient distraction with its modest fishing boats and the occasional grander vessel. The beach, while not directly outside the flat, was close enough that the walk there became part of the pleasure, a chance to point out the absurd names of gelato flavours and debate which playground we might visit later.

By the third evening, I realised I had stopped checking my phone for work emails. This had not happened on a family holiday in years. I mentioned this to my wife as we sat on the terrace, watching the sky turn that particular dusty rose colour it seems to manage only in this part of Italy. She nodded, unsurprised, and poured more wine. The fishmonger, I thought, had probably forgotten me entirely. I hoped his day had improved after my departure. Ours certainly had.

The mishap with the loading bay became our running joke, the story the children demanded retold at meals, my incompetence polished into family folklore. This is what these holidays do, I think. They take the small embarrassments and the minor triumphs of navigation, and they press them into something that outlasts the tan and the stray sand you find in luggage for months afterwards. We had come for the sea and the pasta, which we found in abundance. We stayed, without quite planning to, for the particular pleasure of being slightly lost together, and then found.