I have never been brilliant with directions, and my arrival at Budva Krimovice proved this beyond all doubt. The flight into Tivat had been smooth enough, a little hop over the Adriatic with views that already had me reaching for my phone. But the hire car was another matter entirely. I had opted for the smallest, cheapest thing on the lot, which turned out to be roughly the size of a shopping trolley with aspirations. Within ten minutes of leaving the airport, I had taken a wrong turn somewhere near Budva town and found myself on a narrow road that seemed to be leading directly into someone's olive grove.

The sat nav, which I had nicknamed Deirdre for her bossy tone, kept insisting I perform a U-turn in what was clearly a drainage ditch. I ignored her. This was my first mistake. My second was assuming I could simply follow the coastline and somehow stumble upon Krimovice. The Kotor Riviera does not work like that. The roads here wriggle about like dropped spaghetti, climbing and dipping through hills thick with cypress and wild herbs, occasionally offering glimpses of the bay that make you gasp and nearly steer into the verge.

By the time I spotted the turning for Krimovice, I was forty minutes late, mildly sweaty, and in desperate need of something cold. The villa sat up a gentle slope, cream walls and terracotta roof tiles glowing in the afternoon sun. I grabbed my bags, locked the car with a beep that sounded apologetic, and marched toward the entrance with the false confidence of someone who definitely had not just been lost in an olive grove.

Then came the mishap. The key was in a lockbox, the code scrawled in my notebook. I dialled it in, clicked it open, and felt rather pleased with myself. Too pleased, apparently. In my eagerness to get inside and collapse, I managed to trip on the single step I had failed to notice, sending my shoulder bag flying across the terrace. My water bottle rolled merrily toward the pool. My sunglasses skittered under a lounger. And my notebook, that precious repository of codes and confirmations, flapped open like a startled bird before settling face-down near a potted lemon tree.

I lay there for a moment, half on the step, half on warm stone tiles, wondering if anyone had seen. The villa remained silent. A cicada started up somewhere, which I chose to interpret as laughter.

Once I had gathered my dignity and my belongings, I actually looked at where I was. The terrace wrapped around a decent-sized pool, water still and blue as a postcard. Beyond the low wall, the hills rolled down toward the Adriatic, that particular shade of blue you forget exists until you see it again. The air smelled of pine and something faintly citrus, probably from the tree that had witnessed my graceless entrance.

Inside, the place was cool and simply furnished, all tiled floors and wooden shutters. The kitchen opened onto the terrace, which I immediately decided meant I would be eating every meal outside like a proper Mediterranean type. Whether this would actually happen remained to be seen, but the intention felt important. The bedrooms were upstairs, each with windows framing some new angle of green hillside or distant water.

I made myself a coffee using the machine I had sworn I would not bother with, given the late hour. Caffeine at four in the afternoon is normally my enemy, but I felt I had earned it. I took it back to the terrace, settled onto a lounger with more care than strictly necessary, and watched the light begin to soften over the bay.

My notebook sat beside me, slightly crumpled now, code still legible. Deirdre the sat nav sat abandoned in the car, probably still fuming. The water bottle had been rescued from its poolside adventure, no worse for wear. And I sat there, coffee in hand, already forgiving myself the chaos of arrival. Some holidays begin with seamless efficiency. Others begin with you sprawled on a terrace wondering where your sunglasses have gone. I suspected this one might suit me better.