I have never been so relieved to see a sign for "Grado" in all my life, and that includes the time I got lost in IKEA trying to find the exit. The drive from Trieste Airport had been straightforward enough, or so I thought, until I confidently followed my sat nav down what I can only describe as a farm track masquerading as a road. Three startled chickens and one deeply unimpressed farmer later, I realised I had missed the actual turning by about two miles. Nothing says "seasoned traveller" like having to reverse your hire car past a tractor while pretending this was all part of the plan.

By the time I pulled up at the property, I was already sweating through my linen shirt and questioning every life choice that had led me to trust technology over an actual paper map. But then I stepped out of the car, and the smell of salt and pine hit me like a welcome wave. Grado does that to you. One moment you are flustered and slightly lost, the next you are standing there like a lemon wondering why you do not live here permanently.

The apartment was one of those classic Adriatic setups, all tiled floors and shuttered windows, with a balcony that promised proper morning coffee potential. I dumped my bags with the enthusiastic abandon of someone who had been sitting in various modes of transport for six hours and immediately opened every window to let the warm air circulate. The British in me still expects to need a jumper in May, but Friuli had other ideas. Twenty-seven degrees and not a cloud in sight. I had packed three of them, naturally. They sat in my case like silent accusations.

My plan, hatched in grey London drizzle weeks before, had been ambitious. I was going to walk the entire lagoon trail, the coastal path that loops around from Grado proper down towards the nature reserves. I had downloaded the route, charged my fitness watch, and even bought new walking boots that I had spent a fortnight "wearing in" around my local park. I was ready.

I set off the next morning at what I considered a respectable hiking hour, which is to say early enough to beat the heat but late enough that I had already consumed two coffees and a pastry from the bakery near the harbour. The first mile along the waterfront promenade was glorious. Fishing boats bobbed in the morning light, elderly Italian gentlemen argued about football with the passion of men half their age, and I strode along feeling like the protagonist in one of those inspirational walking documentaries.

Then the temperature climbed. Not gradually, not politely, but with the sudden determination of someone who had somewhere to be. By ten o'clock it was thirty degrees. By half past, I had found myself a bench near the marina and was reconsidering my entire approach to holiday fitness. My new boots, so carefully broken in, had apparently not met Italian heat before. They were plotting against me, I am sure of it.

I spent the rest of that first day adapting, which is a generous word for what was essentially tactical retreat. Short walks became the order of the day. Early mornings along the shore before the sun properly woke up, evening strolls when the light went golden and the temperature dropped to something approaching reasonable. I discovered that Grado's charm reveals itself in these smaller moments anyway. The way the lagoon changes colour through the day, from morning grey-green to afternoon silver to evening pink. The sound of cicadas that builds to a crescendo and then suddenly stops, as if someone has flicked a switch.

By day three I had abandoned my grand hiking plans entirely and embraced what I now call the "Grado shuffle": slow walks between ice cream shops, slightly faster walks to find shade, and the occasional determined march to a restaurant I had read about online. The weather had forced me to slow down, and in doing so had shown me a different rhythm entirely. I still got my walking fix, just in digestible portions that ended with a cold drink and a view of the water.

On my final morning I did manage a proper stretch along the coast, setting out at six when the air still carried the night's coolness and the only other people were runners who made me feel simultaneously lazy and deeply content with my choices. The sun came up over the lagoon as I walked, turning everything impossibly beautiful, and I thought about how my carefully planned adventure had become something else entirely. Less achievement, more experience. Fewer miles, more moments worth remembering.

I got back to find one of my neighbours, a German woman who had been there three weeks already, watering her balcony plants in a dressing gown. She nodded at my walking boots, now dusty and properly worn, and said something in broken English about the heat being "too much for heroes." I agreed completely. Some holidays are about conquering trails and ticking boxes. Others are about learning when to find a bench, order a cold drink, and watch the world do its thing. Grado, it turns out, is firmly in the second category, and I would not have it any other way.