I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I managed to lock our hire car keys inside the boot at Seville airport. There we were, thirty degrees of Andalusian heat beating down, watching through the rear window as our cases sat smugly next to the key fob. Forty minutes and one very patient breakdown chap later, we finally set off for Arcos de la Frontera, already thoroughly marinated in sweat and mild embarrassment.

The drive south-west took us through endless olive groves, the trees shimmering silver-green in the afternoon haze. My partner kept remarking how flat everything was, how open, how unlike the Lake District. I nodded along, secretly nursing my wounded pride and checking my pockets every thirty seconds for the keys.

Arcos announced itself suddenly. One moment we were cruising past farmland, the next the road tilted upward and white buildings clung to a limestone cliff like barnacles. Our holiday home sat in the old town, a traditional town house with a roof terrace that the listing had promised would offer "panoramic views." After hauling our cases up cobbled streets steep enough to count as a workout, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I was not. The terrace delivered the Guadalete valley spread below us, the sierras hazy in the distance, swallows carving arcs through the amber evening light. I stood there with a warm beer from the corner shop, sunburnt and chastened, feeling that particular contentment that follows minor disaster.

We had arrived with ambitious walking plans. The Via Verde de la Sierra, a disused railway line converted to trail, lay within easy reach. The Sierra de Grazalema natural park beckoned with its limestone gorges. I had packed proper boots, moisture-wicking socks, the full kit. The following morning I laced up with purpose, consulted my map, and stepped out into what already felt like a fan oven.

By ten o'clock the temperature had climbed past thirty-two. We managed perhaps two miles of the cliff-top path toward the old castle ruins before conceding defeat. The stone radiated heat upward; my supposedly breathable shirt clung like a wet flannel. We retreated to a shaded plaza and ordered gazpacho, which arrived properly cold, almost shocking, in a glass with ice cubes. I have never been so grateful for liquidised vegetables.

The weather forced a complete rethink. Our serious hiking ambitions evaporated like the morning dew on that terrace. Instead we adapted, became creatures of early mornings and late evenings. At seven the next day, when the town still held coolness in its white walls, we walked the narrow lanes before any shops opened, watching cats emerge from doorways and hearing the first clatter of coffee cups from behind shuttered windows. The light at that hour turned everything golden and forgiving.

By midday we surrendered entirely to the Spanish rhythm. The terrace became our base camp, books and water bottles and the occasional doze in a deck chair. In late afternoon, when the heat finally began to relent, we would venture out again. The walk down to the newer town for supplies became an expedition we actually looked forward to, timing our return uphill as the sun dipped low enough to throw the cliff face into rose-coloured shadow.

One evening we found a path along the cliff edge I had missed on my map-obsessed first day. It led past gardens where geraniums spilled from painted pots, past an old man watering his tomatoes with a can, past a view of the reservoir glinting like mercury in the distance. We walked perhaps twenty minutes before a bar appeared, tables set out under a pepper tree. We stopped for manzanilla and olives, watching the swallows again, their evening hunt, and I realised this was the walking holiday we had actually needed. Not the miles logged, the peaks conquered, but this: moving slowly enough to notice things, heat teaching us patience, the day bending to a rhythm older than our plans.

I still want to return and tackle that Via Verde properly, perhaps in spring when the wildflowers come. But I am oddly grateful for the sun's intervention, for the keys locked in that boot that started everything slightly wrong and therefore perfectly right. Some holidays you earn differently. You walk less, perhaps, but you arrive somewhere unexpected regardless.