By the time we finally crawled out of our hire car at Villa Duo, I had already made a complete fool of myself at Palma Airport. There I was, striding confidently towards the car hire desk, wheelie case trundling behind me like a loyal dog, when the handle snapped clean off and the whole thing careered into a display of bottled water. Twelve euros' worth of San Pellegrino rolling across the terminal floor, and me chasing after them like a contestant on some dreadful game show. My partner just stood there, hand over mouth, pretending not to know me. We have been together eight years.

The drive from the airport took the best part of forty minutes, winding through countryside that grew progressively more lovely and progressively more confusing. I insisted I knew exactly where we were going, which should have been the first warning sign. We circled Santa Gertrudis de Fruitera twice, passing the same bakery three times, each time me declaring "this is definitely a different bakery" until the same woman waved at us from the doorway for the third time. My partner suggested, with the patience of a saint who has run out of patience, that we simply use the sat nav. I refused on principle. The principle, apparently, of getting hopelessly lost on holiday.

But then we found it. And I stopped talking.

Villa Duo sits just outside the village, tucked down a lane lined with gnarled olive trees that look like they have been standing guard for centuries. The first thing that struck me was the silence. Not the uncomfortable, oppressive sort, but the kind that makes you realise how much noise you normally carry around in your head. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then thought better of it. A breeze moved through the pine trees with a sound like someone sighing contentedly.

The villa itself is one of those low, white-washed buildings that seem to grow out of the landscape rather than sit upon it. The owner had left the key in a lockbox with a code that, in my post-journey state, I managed to get wrong four times before my partner gently removed the scrap of paper from my trembling hand and did it herself. The door swung open and we stepped into coolness.

The living space is open and airy, all pale floors and soft corners, with doors that fold back entirely to let the garden in. I walked straight through without looking, drawn by the glimpse of blue I could see beyond, and nearly flattened myself against the glass. Not my finest moment, but my partner was too busy gasping at the terrace to notice.

The pool. I must mention the pool, because it deserves mentioning. It sits there like a mirror someone has laid on the grass, reflecting the sky and the surrounding greenery so perfectly that for a moment I genuinely could not tell where the water ended and the reflection began. I may have said "blimey" out loud. I am not a man who says "blimey" under normal circumstances.

We stood there for I do not know how long, two slightly sun-dazed travellers who had left London in drizzle and arrived in what felt like a different world entirely. My partner poured us each a glass of something cold from the fridge, which the owner had thoughtfully stocked with basics, and we sat on the terrace as the afternoon light began to soften into that particular golden quality that I have only ever found in the Mediterranean.

I thought about the broken suitcase, the circling, the stubbornness with the sat nav. I thought about how I would do it all again, exactly the same way, if it meant arriving here, at this moment, with this particular person beside me and this particular silence settling around us like a blanket.

Tomorrow we might wander into Santa Gertrudis proper, find a cafe, pretend to be locals. Tonight, we simply sat, watching the light change, saying very little, and feeling absolutely no need to say more.