I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Torre dei Corsari did not disappoint. We had flown into Cagliari, collected a hire car that smelled faintly of fish and optimism, and set off north along the coastal road with a printed map and misplaced confidence. Somewhere between Portixeddu and nowhere in particular, I took what I firmly believed was a shortcut. It was not a shortcut. It was a track. A track designed, as far as I could tell, for goats with excellent suspension and no particular schedule.

The comedy peaked when our little Fiat Panda ground to a halt in front of a field of sheep who regarded us with the weary contempt of locals watching another tourist make a complete hash of things. My partner, who had been navigating with the map upside down for twenty minutes without admitting it, suggested we simply "follow the coastline." Brilliant in theory. Less brilliant when the coastline was currently separated from us by a small mountain and what appeared to be an abandoned cork farm.

Three hours later, dusty, slightly quarrelsome, and in desperate need of something caffeinated, we crested a hill and saw Torre dei Corsari proper. The tower itself, that squat seventeenth-century watchtower standing guard over the Scivu beach, appeared like a mirage. More importantly, so did a bar.

Our apartment, part of a small complex just back from the shore, turned out to be worth every moment of navigational humiliation. But here is the thing I have learned about getting properly lost: you stop looking for the famous spots and start noticing everything else. The next morning, still jet-lagged and wakeful at dawn, I went wandering without purpose. A path behind the apartment complex, barely marked, led me through low macchia scrub smelling of myrtle and wild fennel. Ten minutes of uncertain walking brought me to a cove I never found named on any map, where an old man in a wool cap was fishing with a hand line and a patience I envied. He nodded. I nodded. We shared a silence that felt like conversation.

That set the pattern. We found a bakery in the nearby village by following a woman carrying a baguette like a compass needle pointing toward carbohydrates. The bread was still warm, and the owner, who spoke no English and tolerated my Italian with amused kindness, threw in some sebadas for free when I attempted to compliment his oven. These fried pastries filled with pecorino and drizzled with honey became our breakfast ritual, discovered entirely because I had chased a stranger down a back street.

One afternoon, driving vaguely toward the beach but missing the turn, we stumbled upon a tiny vineyard where a family sold their own Vermentino from a garage. The father insisted we try three varieties despite it being eleven in the morning. We bought two bottles and made friends with their arthritic dog.

The Scivu beach itself, with its golden dunes and that extraordinary turquoise water, was everything promised. But I remember more vividly the evening we got lost returning from it, taking a wrong fork that led to a viewpoint where local teenagers gathered to watch sunset. They shared their crisps and pointed out the best place to photograph the light on the tower, which glowed amber against the darkening hills.

By the end of the week, I stopped using the map entirely. We found a trail to a hidden waterfall by following painted arrows that seemed more suggestion than direction. We ate dinner at a restaurant with no sign, three tables, and a grandmother who cooked whatever she had decided that morning. Every wrong turn rewarded us.

I arrived in Sardinia thinking I needed plans and reservations and reliable mobile signal. I left understanding that my best memories would be of moments I could never have scheduled: the fisherman, the garage wine, the teenagers and their crisps, the sheep who started it all. Some places demand to be found by accident. Torre dei Corsari, and everything around it, is emphatically one of them.