I have never been brilliant with directions, which is how I ended up driving our hire car down what I can only describe as a goat track somewhere north of Cartagena, convinced I was taking a scenic shortcut to our holiday let. My partner, sat beside me with the map on her phone, made that particular face she saves for when I have done something spectacularly daft. The face says: "I love you, but honestly." Three point turns on a dusty ridge with a sheer drop on one side and an angry-looking cactus on the other was not how I had imagined starting our week in Murcia.

We were booked into a place called Perin, just outside a little coastal town called La Azohia. It is one of those Spanish holiday homes where the photographs do not quite capture the smell of lavender and dry earth when you finally arrive, sweaty and slightly traumatised, in the late afternoon. I practically fell out of the car, legs still vibrating from the drive, and stood there like a complete lemon while my partner dealt with the keys. The villa sat low and white against the hillside, with a terrace that looked straight out towards the Mar Menor. After my navigational masterpiece, I needed that view more than I care to admit.

The first thing that struck me was the quiet. Not the creepy, oppressive quiet of the countryside back home, but a warm, humming sort of stillness, broken only by a dog barking somewhere distant and the occasional screech of a swift overhead. We dumped our bags and I made straight for the pool, still in my driving shoes, and stood at the edge like a man who had just crossed a desert. The water was properly cold, which I had not expected given the heat. I yelped. My partner, now on a sun lounger with a book, did not even look up. She had moved on to her "I told you so" face, the one that follows the first face after sufficient time has passed.

That evening we walked down to the village for dinner, a twenty-minute stroll that became thirty because I kept stopping to look at things. The light in Murcia at that hour is extraordinary, all honeyed and soft, and the path wound past scrubby hillsides dotted with abandoned-looking fincas and the occasional flourishing allotment. An old boy was watering his tomatoes in a vest and flat cap, and he nodded at me as if I belonged there. I nodded back, feeling absurdly pleased with myself.

We ate grilled sardines at a beachfront place where the waiter seemed genuinely baffled by my attempt at Spanish. He was perfectly pleasant about it, switching to English with the weariness of a man who has heard "una cerveza, por favor" mangled a thousand different ways. The walk back up to Perin in the dark, slightly wobbly from the local wine, was when I first understood why people come back to this corner of Spain year after year. The stars were ridiculous, thick as spilled sugar across the black, and somewhere below us the sea made that rhythmic shushing sound that I always forget I need until I hear it again.

I lay in bed that night with the shutters open, letting the warm air move over me, and thought about how I nearly ruined our arrival with my stubborn belief that I knew better than the satnav. There is something humbling about getting things wrong in a place where you do not speak the language properly, where the landscape does not care about your plans. I had wanted to feel competent, in control, and instead I had spent forty-five minutes sweating and reversing on a mountain track while my partner silently fumed. And yet here I was, in a comfortable bed, listening to the night, already laughing about it in my head.

The morning brought proper heat, the kind that makes you move slower and think about water constantly. We had intended a long coastal walk to Isla Plana, but by ten o'clock the thermometer on the terrace read thirty-four degrees and my partner, who is far more sensible about these things than I am, suggested we modify our ambitions. We settled for a shorter loop along the shoreline near La Azohia itself, setting out early the next day before the sun got properly violent.

That walk became the rhythm of our stay. Up with the light, out before breakfast grew too heavy in our stomachs, following the dusty trails that cling to the coastline between little coves and fishing villages. The path from La Azohia towards the headland at Punta de la Azohia is not demanding, but it is spectacular in that understated Mediterranean way: crumbling cliffs, turquoise water so clear you can spot fish from above, the smell of salt and wild rosemary rising from underfoot. We passed a German couple in serious walking boots who looked at my canvas trainers with something between pity and alarm. I smiled cheerfully. My feet were fine, though I did acquire a respectable blister that I showed off later like a battle wound.

The heat shaped everything. By midday the trails were empty, the sensible world retreated to shaded terraces and siestas, and we learned to do the same. One morning we pushed further than usual, aiming for a cove my partner had read about, but the temperature climbed faster than anticipated and we found ourselves halfway there with insufficient water and that particular headache that comes from too much sun on the back of your neck. We turned back, no drama, just two people laughing at their own optimism as they trudged to the nearest beach bar for lemon granizado and a prolonged sit-down.

I am not naturally good at adjusting plans. I like an itinerary, a target, a sense of achievement at the end. But Murcia in summer teaches you something different, or it did me. The walks that worked best were the early, shorter ones, the ones that left time for a long lunch and a doze by the pool, the ones where you actually noticed things because you were not pushing through discomfort to reach some arbitrary destination. I noticed the way the light changed on the water through the afternoon, the particular shade of ochre in the cliffs, how the fishing boats returned in a little cluster around five o'clock, their engines puttering across the stillness.

On our final morning I got up before my partner and walked alone down to the village, taking the longer route through the allotments where the old boy in the vest was already tending his tomatoes. He nodded again. I nodded back. This time I really did feel like I belonged, if only for a week, if only in the small way that a visitor can belong to a place by accepting its terms. The sun was just clearing the hills, the heat still gentle, promising another fierce day. I bought pastries from the bakery, still warm, and climbed back up to Perin feeling something like peace, which is not a feeling I find easily at home.

My partner was awake when I returned, making coffee in the little kitchen with the shutters half-closed against the gathering brightness. We ate on the terrace, not saying much, watching a sailing school set out on the Mar Menor, their tiny boats like white petals scattered on blue silk. I thought about mentioning some profound realisation about heat and slowness and learning to turn back, but it felt too neat, too article-shaped. Instead I told her about the old boy and his tomatoes, and she smiled in that way that means she understands exactly what I am trying to say without my needing to say it properly.

We left that afternoon, the car pointing north towards the airport, my partner navigating with her phone and me following instructions without complaint or detour. The hire company got their car back without new scratches, which I counted as a personal victory. But I knew, and I think she knew too, that we would come back to this particular corner of Spain, to early walks and afternoon stillness and the particular lesson of a place that refuses to be rushed. Some holidays give you memories. This one gave me something slightly more useful: the beginning of a habit of slowing down, even if I still need the weather to force my hand.