I have to be honest with you: I nearly didn't make it to Aznalcazar at all. Not because of some dramatic travel disaster, but because I am an idiot who cannot read a sat nav. I had flown into Seville, picked up my hire car with the smug confidence of a man who had watched one YouTube video about Spanish roundabouts, and promptly spent forty-five minutes driving in circles around a petrol station on the outskirts of the city. Turns out there are two roads with almost identical names, and I picked the wrong one three times in a row. By the time I finally pointed the car towards the countryside, I was sweating through my t-shirt, swearing at my reflection, and deeply questioning my life choices.

The drive itself, once I got going, was gorgeous. Proper Andalusian countryside, all rolling fields and olive groves shimmering in the heat. I wound down the window and let that warm, dry air blast my face, still half-convinced I was going the wrong way. But then there it was: a little cluster of buildings, a signpost, and suddenly the narrow lanes of Aznalcazar proper. I had booked a traditional cortijo through Novasol, one of those whitewashed rural properties you see in brochures and assume cannot possibly be as peaceful as they look.

Reader, it was more peaceful. I pulled up on the dusty track, gravel crunching under the tyres, and just sat there for a moment. Complete silence except for cicadas and the distant clank of a goat bell. The house itself was simple and lovely, thick walls and terracotta tiles and a small pool glinting temptingly in the courtyard. I dumped my bags with the frantic energy of a man who had been sitting in a car for too long, grabbed my walking boots, and decided immediately to explore on foot.

This was, in retrospect, a mistake. Not the exploring part. The boot part. It was late September, I had checked the weather in Seville and seen reasonable temperatures, and I had somehow convinced myself that thick leather hiking boots were appropriate for an afternoon stroll in thirty-two degree heat. Within ten minutes of walking the lanes around the property, my socks were sodden and I was developing a blister that would feature prominently in my life for the next three days.

I had planned, you see, to do proper walking. The coast was not far by Andalusian standards, and I had visions of dramatic cliff-top hikes, of striding along sandy paths with the Atlantic breeze keeping me cool. I had even packed a guidebook, which I had not opened, and a reusable water bottle, which I had forgotten to fill. The first afternoon, I managed perhaps two miles of gentle lane-walking before retreating to the cortijo, defeated, to stand in the pool in my pants like a man having some kind of breakdown.

The weather, I quickly learned, had its own agenda. Mornings were glorious, that soft golden light that makes everything look like a painting, cool enough to actually move around without dissolving. By midday, the heat sat on you like a heavy blanket. My coastal hiking plans kept shifting. I would set my alarm for early walks, trudge out to the car while it was still almost bearable, drive to the nearest coastal paths, and manage a couple of hours before the sun climbed too high and sent me scurrying for shade.

There was one morning, though, that made all the sweaty suffering worthwhile. I got to the coast near Matalascanas just after dawn, the sky all pink and orange, and walked for nearly three hours along the beach and the low cliffs behind it. The sand was still cool, the waves making that rhythmic hush that beach waves make, and I passed maybe three other people. I felt smug and accomplished and slightly sunburned, which is my natural state on holiday.

Back at the cortijo, the routine became almost embarrassingly pleasant. Early walk, late breakfast, pool, siesta, another short evening wander when the heat broke. I stopped fighting the weather and started working with it, which is not something I am good at generally. I am a planner, a list-maker, a man who likes to tick things off. Andalusia in late summer does not care about your lists. Andalusia wants you to slow down, drink another tinto de verano, and accept that you will not be marching twenty miles in this heat unless you are actively trying to die.

On my last evening, I walked the local lanes again, this time in sandals with actual water, and watched the sun drop behind the olive trees. The sky went that particular violent orange that only seems to happen in hot places, and I thought about how I had arrived a week earlier, furious and lost and sweating in a petrol station forecourt. I was still sweating, obviously. That never really stopped. But I was also, against my usual nature, quite wonderfully unbothered by it.