I have never been particularly gifted with sat navs, and my journey to Vidreres proved this beyond all doubt. Somewhere between Girona and the Costa Brava, I managed to direct myself down what I can only describe as a goat track masquerading as a road, my hire car scraping through olive groves while my phone cheerfully announced "recalculating" in that passive-aggressive tone it reserves for idiots. Forty minutes of increasingly creative Catalan swearing later, I burst through a thicket of pines and found myself staring at the wrong villa entirely, owned by a very confused German couple who were having their lunch on the terrace. I waved, they waved back, and I reversed with what dignity I could muster.

The actual property, when I finally located it, sat tucked into the hills above Vidreres with that particular hush you only find when you have accidentally climbed much higher than intended. The villa was all terracotta and white plaster, surrounded by a garden of lavender and stubborn wild rosemary that smelled like a kitchen cupboard in the best possible way. I dumped my bags, still slightly pink from the embarrassment of my navigational failure, and stood on the terrace watching heat shimmer off the distant Mediterranean. It was late May, the sort of weather that tricks you into believing summer has arrived with proper commitment.

My plan, hatched during a rainy Tuesday in Manchester, had been gloriously simple. I would spend my week walking the coastal paths of the Costa Brava, marching from cove to cove with a rucksack and a sense of purpose. The GR92, that famous long-distance trail, was to be my companion. I had downloaded maps, purchased sensible socks, and was prepared to become insufferable about my daily step count.

The first morning, I drove down to Lloret de Mar and found the trailhead with uncharacteristic efficiency. The path clung to rocky headlands, dropping to hidden beaches where fishermen's huts sat in various states of picturesque collapse. I walked for three hours, sweating happily, stopping to swim at Cala Boadella where the water was still that pre-summer clarity, cold enough to take your breath but not your courage. I ate bread and cheese on a rock like a proper adventurer and felt smug in a way that only people who have escaped office life can properly achieve.

By day three, the weather had shifted. Not dramatically, not with any cinematic storm clouds, but with a creeping humidity that turned my coastal ambition into something more complicated. The forecast showed temperatures climbing steadily, and by Thursday the local advice was clear: walk early, walk late, or accept that you will become a puddle. I am stubborn by nature and tried to ignore this wisdom, setting out for Tossa de Mar at eleven in the morning. I made it forty minutes before retreating to a beach bar for a very long lunch, my sensible socks squelching in my boots, my face the colour of the local rosado.

This gentle defeat became the pattern of my stay. I rose at six, walked until the heat built, then surrendered to the rhythms of afternoon. The villa's pool, which I had initially dismissed as unnecessary indulgence, became my refuge. I read books I had been pretending to read for years. I napped without guilt. I learned that the local bakery in Vidreres opened at half past six and sold ensaimadas that made the early start genuinely worthwhile.

There is something quietly instructive about plans that refuse to cooperate. I had come for coastal conquest and found instead a slower rhythm, one that allowed me to notice the way the light changed on the hills, the particular silence of siesta time, the patience required to do very little with complete commitment. On my final evening, I walked down to the village for dinner, the heat finally softening, and sat with a glass of vermut watching elderly men play petanca with the focused seriousness of chess grandmasters. I thought about my German neighbours, my sat nav nemesis, my abandoned step count. I had covered far less ground than planned, and I could not bring myself to regret it.