I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when my phone decided Portoroz was actually in Croatia. There I was, following Google Maps with the confidence of a man who once got lost in his own garden shed, sailing past the Slovenian border with a cheery wave and absolutely no idea I was heading in entirely the wrong direction. Forty-five minutes of increasingly panicked U-turns later, I finally spotted the salt flats of Secovlje gleaming in the distance like nature's own apology for my navigational incompetence.

The property itself sits in that peculiar liminal zone where touristy Portoroz proper dissolves into something far more intriguing. I pulled up to what I initially thought was the wrong house, double-checking my booking confirmation with the frantic energy of someone who'd already had one disaster that morning. But no, this was it: a modest stone building with a terrace that looked out over olive groves and, if you squinted, the shimmer of the Adriatic beyond.

What struck me first was the silence. Not the oppressive kind, but the sort that makes you realise how much noise you've been carrying around in your own head. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of a man reunited with his long-lost sofa and immediately set off to explore, despite having no plan whatsoever. This, I have learned, is when the best things happen.

I wandered down a track that looked like it led somewhere important and promptly found myself in the middle of the Secovlje salt pans, a vast geometric wonderland of evaporating seawater that has been producing salt since medieval times. There was no grand entrance, no ticket booth, just me and a heron who looked deeply unimpressed by my sudden appearance. I later discovered there's a proper museum entrance somewhere, but my accidental route through the back paths felt infinitely more magical, like stumbling into someone else's secret.

The next morning, determined to replicate my success at getting gloriously lost, I headed in what I believed was the direction of the beach. Twenty minutes of ambling through scrubland and I found myself at a tiny harbour called Sicciole, or at least that's what the faded sign suggested. A handful of fishing boats, one elderly man mending nets with the patience of a saint, and absolutely nothing else. He offered me a fig from his tree without a word of English, and we sat in companionable silence watching the water. I have paid good money for worse experiences at pretentious restaurants.

By day three, my complete inability to follow directions had become something of a philosophy. I abandoned maps entirely and simply followed my nose, which led me to a crumbling stone chapel somewhere between Secovlje and the Dragonja River. I never did learn its name. The door was unlocked, the interior smelled of dust and old candles, and someone had left fresh wildflowers in a jar on the windowsill. I sat there for an hour, feeling like an intruder and yet somehow welcome, contemplating how much of life I spend rushing toward destinations when the accidental detours contain all the meaning.

The terrace back at the property became my evening ritual. I'd bring local Teran wine, some of that salt I'd watched being harvested, and watch the light change over the pans. Portoroz's glitzy hotels were visible in the distance, but I felt I'd found something they couldn't sell: the particular joy of not knowing where you're going and not particularly minding.

On my final morning, I tried to find that chapel again and failed completely. This felt exactly right. Some things, I decided, are meant to be stumbled upon once and held in memory, not pinned down like specimens. I left Slovenia with salt on my boots, fig seeds in my teeth, and the certain knowledge that my worst navigational disaster had become my best holiday in years.