I'd left Ljubljana with what I thought was plenty of time, a printed map, and a misplaced confidence in my ability to read Slovenian road signs. Three hours later I found myself in a village that definitely wasn't Izola, standing outside a petrol station with a flat croissant and a phone on four percent, asking a man walking his goat whether I was anywhere near the coast. He looked at me, looked at the goat, and said something that sounded like "pravokotnik," which I'm fairly certain means rectangle. I nodded as if this helped. It did not help.

When I finally rolled up to the property in Izola, it was half past four and I had aged approximately eleven years. The place itself sat tucked along one of those narrow Istrian lanes where the buildings lean together like they're sharing secrets. I parked badly, very badly, at an angle that blocked approximately nobody but offended my own sense of order. A woman appeared from the doorway opposite, perhaps sixty, with hair the colour of strong tea and an apron that had seen actual use. "You are the English," she said. Not a question. A diagnosis.

This was Marjeta. She owned the olive trees behind the property, or perhaps the olive trees owned her, I never quite established which. Within four minutes she had told me my parking was criminal, that I looked hungry, and that her nephew made wine that would "fix my face." I hadn't been aware my face needed fixing, but I accepted a glass at six that evening with the enthusiasm of a man who'd eaten only a flattened croissant since breakfast.

The wine was excellent. My face, I choose to believe, improved.

The property itself opened into a small courtyard where jasmine had staged a quiet coup over one wall. I stood there with my single bag, still slightly vibrating from the drive, and realised I could smell the sea. Not see it yet, but smell it, that particular salt-and-heat combination that makes you immediately conscious of how pale you are. A man emerged from the neighbouring garden holding pruning shears and an expression of profound suspicion. "German?" he asked. "English," I said. He made a noise like a small engine failing to start and retreated behind his bougainvillea. I would later learn this was Stanko, that he had fought the Germans in precisely zero wars but maintained a position of principled readiness, and that his tomatoes were the subject of intense local rivalry.

Marjeta returned with bread, actual bread, still warm, which she thrust at me with the aggression of a mugging. "You eat this," she commanded. "Tomorrow you go to Piran, you eat rubbish. Today you eat proper." I ate proper. It was sourdough with something herbal I couldn't identify, and it tasted like the argument I needed to have with myself about why I don't do this more often, why I don't arrive places hungry and let strangers feed me, why I need printed maps and dead phones to force me into conversations with goat-walking rectangle enthusiasts.

By eight the courtyard had accumulated people. Stanko reappeared with tomatoes, which he presented silently, as evidence. A younger man called Denis, who I gathered was Marjeta's grandson, arrived with fish he'd caught that morning, and proceeded to tell me at length about a squid that had "looked at him wrong." An older woman called Fanika, who lived three doors down and spoke only Istrian dialect, sat in a plastic chair and judged everyone's fish-cleaning technique with visible disappointment. Nobody translated for me. I didn't need translation. Her face was translation enough.

I went to bed that night with wine still warm in my chest and the sound of Stanko and Marjeta arguing about irrigation drifting through an open window. I understood perhaps twelve words. I understood everything. Some places you arrive at, and some places gather you in, slightly lost, poorly parked, face apparently in need of fixing, and feed you bread that tastes like an argument you needed to have with yourself.