I have never been so grateful for a sat nav in my entire life, and I have never wanted to throw one out of a moving vehicle quite so badly either. The journey from Ljubljana Airport to our Koper Pomjan in the Coast and Karst region had been going swimmingly until we hit the hills above the coast, where the roads narrowed to what I can only describe as ambitious footpaths and the sat nav developed a worrying enthusiasm for routes that involved driving through what appeared to be someone's vegetable patch.

The mishap came when I, in a moment of spectacular overconfidence, decided I knew better than the machine and took what looked like a shortcut. Ten minutes later we were parked in front of a very confused farmer who was holding a wheelbarrow and looking at us with the expression of someone who had seen this exact scene play out many times before. He didn't speak English, I don't speak Slovene, but we managed a perfectly satisfactory conversation involving pointing, shrugging, and my wife doing that apologetic little wave British people do when they've accidentally colonised someone's driveway. He pointed us back the way we'd come. We thanked him with a packet of Werther's Originals we had in the glove box, because apparently we have become our parents.

By the time we actually found the property, the afternoon light was doing that golden thing it does in late September, slanting through the vines that cover the pergola outside and making everything look like a film set designed specifically to make you feel inadequate about your own garden back in Birmingham. The air smelled of grapes and the sea, which I hadn't expected to detect so far inland, but there it was, that faint saltiness mixing with the warmer, earthier scents of late harvest.

The season had turned the surrounding countryside into something almost aggressively picturesque. The vineyards were heavy with the last of the grapes, leaves beginning to turn at the edges, and the olive trees looked properly ancient, the kind of gnarled and patient that makes you feel rushed and modern just by standing near them. Our host had left a bottle of local wine on the kitchen counter, and I noticed it was from the previous year's harvest, which apparently was the done thing here, drinking last year's while this year's finished its business on the vine.

The pool, which in summer would presumably be the centre of everything, sat there looking slightly wistful, too cold now for anything more ambitious than a brave paddle. But the terrace heaters were already set up, and there was something about needing a light jumper as the sun went down that made the whole place feel more intimate, less like a holiday rental and more like somewhere you might actually live. We cooked outside that first evening, which in September meant starting while it was still warm enough not to need the heaters, then gradually migrating closer to them as the darkness brought a proper chill down from the hills.

I found myself thinking about how different this must be in July, when the place would be buzzing with families and the pool would be a screaming competition, and I realised with some surprise that I preferred this version. The season had stripped away the performance of summer holidaying and left something quieter, more particular to this exact spot. The farmer's confusion, the sat nav's betrayal, the slightly too cold pool, the heater glowing orange against the darkening vines, they all belonged to this specific week in late September, and I couldn't imagine wanting to swap them for the proper heat of full summer, even if someone had offered.

We finished the wine, watched the last light disappear behind the hills towards the coast, and went to bed with the windows open, letting in that particular September coolness that promises autumn without quite delivering it yet.