I have never been so relieved to see a set of keys taped to a wheelie bin in my entire life. After a three-hour flight from Gatwick, a rental car queue that moved slower than Spanish lunchtime, and a sat-nav that decided "Manacor" was more of a suggestion than an actual destination, I finally pulled up to our holiday home somewhere past eleven at night. The instructions said the keys were "hidden near the entrance." They were, technically, if you consider the recycling area an entrance feature. I had already tripped over a potted olive tree and set off a neighbour's dog into what I can only describe as operatic hysteria. Welcome to Majorca.

The villa itself revealed itself properly the next morning, and I mean that literally - I had not bothered with curtains the night before, too exhausted to care. I woke to sunlight pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of pine-covered hills that made me forget entirely about the wheelie bin debacle. The pool glimmered turquoise in the garden, surrounded by a terrace of local stone that looked like it had been there since Franco was in short trousers. I made coffee in the outdoor kitchen, burned my mouth on it immediately, and decided this was already the most relaxed I had been in months.

Manacor itself is Mallorca's second-largest town, though "town" feels generous when you have just come from Croydon. I had planned precisely nothing for our first day, which turned out to be the best decision of the holiday. We wandered down lanes that narrowed to single-track, found a bakery where no one spoke English and I accidentally ordered four cheese pastries instead of two, and stumbled upon a market selling leather goods that smelled powerfully of cows and craftsmanship. My partner bought sandals. I bought a belt I did not need. The woman wrapped it in brown paper like it was something precious.

The real discovery came from getting properly lost. We had intended to find a beach - any beach, we were not fussy - but took a wrong turn somewhere near Porto Cristo and ended up on a dirt track that our sensible Ford Fiesta handled with all the enthusiasm of a supermarket trolley. The track ended at a small cove with no facilities, no lifeguard, and precisely three other people, one of whom was asleep under a fishing boat. The water was that impossible Mediterranean blue that makes you suspicious of filters. We stayed until the sun dipped behind the cliffs, sharing warm oranges from a roadside purchase and watching a local man spearfish with what looked like homemade equipment. He caught nothing while we watched, which somehow made it more charming.

Back at the villa, I cooked badly on the barbecue while bats emerged from the pine trees and swooped for insects overhead. The fridge held a bottle of local red that cost less than a London pint and tasted of something I lack the vocabulary to describe - dark fruit, maybe, and the particular dust of this island. We ate outside until the candles burned down, talking about whether we could actually live here, knowing we could not, enjoying the fantasy anyway.

That first day set the pattern. We found a vineyard by following a hand-painted sign that looked older than I am, tasted wines in someone's garage while their grandmother watched television in the corner. We discovered a walking path behind the villa that led to an abandoned stone finca, its roof collapsed but its almond trees still producing. I filled my pockets with nuts and felt like a successful forager, though I had no idea what to do with them.

The mishaps continued, of course. I locked us out one afternoon and had to climb a wall that the estate agent had definitely warned about. I got sunburned in October, which felt personally offensive. I attempted to speak Spanish to a waiter who turned out to be German, then English to a shopkeeper who turned out to be Mallorquin and deeply unimpressed. Each small humiliation became part of the texture, something to laugh about over that cheap red wine.

By the end of the week, I understood something I had forgotten about holidays: the planned things are rarely the ones that stay with you. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant we researched for an hour online. I remember the cove, the fisherman, the oranges. I remember the bats and the bad barbecue and the grandmother watching television in the vineyard. I remember the feeling of turning down a road with no idea where it went, and finding somewhere that felt briefly like it belonged to us alone.

We left the keys back on the wheelie bin, obviously. Some traditions you do not question.