I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a minor disaster, and my trip to Chiclana de la Frontera did not disappoint. There I was, navigating the hire car through the sun-blasted lanes of Andalusia, smugly certain that my phone's GPS knew what it was doing. It did not. One wrong turn outside Cadiz led me down a dirt track between orange groves, where I promptly got wedged between two optimistic cacti. The locals found this hilarious. So did I, eventually, once I had stopped sweating and accepted that reverse gear was my only friend.

By the time I reached the property, I was several hours late, covered in dust, and sporting a impressive collection of mosquito bites. But stepping through the door, I forgot the whole sorry episode. The place had that wonderful Spanish quality of being simultaneously modest and generous: cool tiled floors, a kitchen that smelled faintly of lemons, and a terrace that looked out towards distant salt flats shimmering in the heat. I dumped my bags with theatrical exhaustion and poured myself a glass of something cold.

The next morning, still refusing to trust technology, I set out on foot with only a paper map and misplaced confidence. Chiclana is not large, but it rewards the wanderer. I took a left where I should have gone right, following a narrow street that petered out into nothing. Or so I thought. The nothing turned out to be a tiny plaza with a single bar, three old men playing dominoes, and a fountain that had probably been there since before Columbus. The barman served me a cafe solo without asking, as if he had been expecting me all along. I sat for an hour, watching the town ignore me in the most companionable way.

Later that afternoon, properly lost now, I stumbled upon a bakery down a passage so narrow my shoulders nearly touched both walls. The woman inside spoke no English and I speak Spanish like a toddler, but we managed through gestures and laughter. She sold me a still-warm empanada filled with spinach and pine nuts that I ate on a nearby bench, watching a grandmother scold a small dog with theatrical passion. It remains one of the best meals I have ever had.

The property itself became my refuge from these accidental adventures. I would return in the late afternoon, dusty and triumphant, to sit by the pool with a book I never quite finished. The light in Andalusia has a particular golden quality in the hours before dinner, and I found myself simply watching it move across the courtyard tiles, too content to move.

On my third day, I took a wrong turning that led me to the edge of the Marismas, the salt marshes that stretch towards the coast. A wooden walkway led out across the flats, and I followed it until the town disappeared behind me. Flamingos stood in the shallow water, impossibly pink and utterly unconcerned. I had not known they were there. I had not known anything about this place, really, and that was the entire point.

By the end of the week, my map was soft with humidity and covered in my own scribbled notes. The cactus scratches had healed. I had learned that getting lost in Chiclana is not a mistake but a method, that the town reveals itself only to those who arrive unprepared and willing to be surprised. I left with sand in my shoes, a sunburned nose, and the certain knowledge that I would return without a map at all.