I had convinced myself that driving through the Slovenian countryside would be a doddle. Sat nav, a full tank, and a packet of wine gums on the passenger seat - what could possibly go wrong? Three hours later, I found myself down a single-track lane somewhere near the Italian border, staring at a very confused goat who seemed to be wondering the same thing.

The goat, I later discovered, was practically a local landmark in Kozana, a tiny settlement perched in the Goriska hills. My actual landmark - the Nova Gorica Kozana holiday home - was meant to be somewhere up ahead. The sat nav had given up five minutes prior, leaving me with nothing but instinct and a rapidly diminishing supply of wine gums.

I spotted a woman hanging washing in her garden and wound down the window to ask for directions. She spoke no English, I spoke no Slovenian, and my GCSE German proved about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Through an elaborate performance of pointing, miming, and what I can only describe as interpretive dance, she conveyed that I needed to turn around, go back past the goat, take the second left, and look for the house with the fig tree. I thanked her profusely, reversed into a hedge, and set off with renewed determination.

The fig tree, when I finally found it, was magnificent. Heavy with fruit, it stood guard beside a stone house that looked like it had grown organically from the hillside itself. The Nova Gorica Kozana property revealed itself in stages: first the wooden balcony with its view across the valley, then the terraced garden tumbling down towards vineyards, finally the warm stone walls that promised cool interiors after my sweaty ordeal.

I dumped my bags with theatrical exhaustion and immediately got lost again. Not in the house - that part was straightforward enough - but in the immediate surroundings. I had planned to walk to the village shop, a journey the website suggested would take ten minutes. Forty minutes later, I was somewhere entirely unplanned, standing in a clearing surrounded by wild rosemary and the distant sound of church bells.

That unplanned clearing became the highlight of my entire trip. I sat on a fallen log, slightly out of breath, and watched a hawk circle above the vineyards. The afternoon light did that magical thing where everything turns golden and significant, and I had the profound realisation that I am precisely the sort of person who will always choose the wrong path and occasionally stumble upon something better.

The village shop, when I eventually found it the following day, was a revelation in itself. No larger than my kitchen at home, it stocked everything from local Teran wine to homemade prsut, the air-dried ham that this region does so extraordinarily well. The owner, a man with eyebrows like caterpillars, insisted on slicing me samples until I was practically too full for dinner.

Each morning of that week, I set out deliberately without a map. The hills around Kozana reward the wandering soul. I discovered a tiny chapel with a door that creaked like a horror film, its interior surprisingly bright with painted saints. I found a spring where locals filled bottles with mineral water, chatting in a dialect that sounded half-Slovene, half-Italian. I stumbled upon a family harvesting grapes who pressed a glass of young wine into my hand before I could protest.

The Nova Gorica Kozana house became my anchor in this sea of happy accidents. Each evening I would return to that balcony, fig tree rustling below, and watch the valley settle into darkness. The lights of Nova Gorica proper twinkled in the distance, but I felt no urge to join them. My wrong turns had become the entire point.

On my final morning, I packed the car with exaggerated care, determined to leave without incident. I reversed slowly down the lane, rounded the corner, and found myself face-to-face with the same goat from my arrival. We regarded each other with mutual respect. I had come full circle, quite literally, and I would not have had it any other way.