I have never been so relieved to see a swimming pool in my entire life, and that includes the time I nearly swallowed a lungful of chlorinated water at my cousin's wedding reception. The journey to Esplendor in Campos had been one of those classic family-holiday odysseys where everything goes slightly wrong in the most predictable ways possible.

We had flown into Palma without incident, which should have been my first warning sign. The hire car queue moved at the pace of a sleepy tortoise. My youngest decided this was the perfect moment to inform us she had packed fourteen stuffed animals but no shoes. My partner developed a sudden and passionate interest in whether we had purchased the correct insurance waiver, a conversation that lasted approximately the length of a feature film. By the time we actually reached the car, I was already on my second packet of airport crisps and my first minor existential crisis.

The drive southeast took about forty minutes, winding through that gorgeous Majorcan countryside that makes you forget you are essentially a stressed parent in a metal box. Almond groves, stone walls, the occasional sheep giving you a look of profound judgement. We passed through Campos itself, a proper working town with none of that polished resort sheen, and I felt myself unclench slightly. This was the Mallorca I remembered from childhood trips, the quiet interior that people speed past on their way to beach clubs.

Then came the mishap. Our sat nav, which I have nicknamed Deceiver, announced we had arrived while we were clearly in somebody's driveway. Not our somebody. A somebody who was watering their geraniums and watching with the weary expression of someone who had seen this performance many times before. I performed a twelve-point turn of such agonising slowness that my daughter offered helpful commentary from the back seat, and my partner developed a sudden fascination with the floor mat. The geranium owner waved cheerfully. I wanted to dissolve into the tarmac.

We found the actual entrance two minutes later, down a lane that felt properly rural without being remote. The finca-style property sat there looking thoroughly unbothered by our chaos, all honey-coloured stone and established gardens. I had worried it might feel too polished, too rental-catalogue perfect, but there was something genuinely settled about it. The kind of place that has hosted decades of slightly frazzled arrivals.

Stepping inside, the cool hit first. Thick walls doing their ancient job properly. The living space opened out with those beamed ceilings you cannot fake, terracotta floors that have been walked smooth by generations of feet in flip-flops. My daughter immediately claimed the pool view from the terrace doors, announcing she would be living there now. I did not argue. The kitchen had that well-equipped practicality you actually want on a family break, not the decorative kind where you cannot find a decent knife.

But it was the outside that truly redeemed our journey. The covered terrace with its proper dining table, the barbecue area that promised evenings of slightly burnt sausages and cold beer, the pool shimmering with that particular blue that makes children shriek and adults exhale. I stood there with my airport-crisp packet still crumpled in my pocket and thought, yes, this is exactly why we do this. The chaos, the wrong driveway, the geranium witness. All of it dissolves when you find your spot.

I have learned that the best family holidays are not the ones where everything goes smoothly. They are the ones where the mishaps become the stories you tell later, once you have stopped wanting to hide behind a cushion. By day two, the wrong driveway was already family legend. By day three, I was the one waving cheerfully at lost arrivals, watering can in hand, thoroughly converted to the slow rhythms of a Campos cottage holiday.