I have never been so relieved to see a Ryanair cabin crew member's laminated safety card as I was when our flight finally touched down in Alicante. Three hours of my neighbour describing his cryptocurrency portfolio in granular detail had left me contemplating the emergency exit. Still, Gran Alacant awaited, and I had visions of poolside tranquillity dancing in my head.

The car hire queue was where I first encountered Pepe, a man whose moustache deserved its own postcode. He worked for the rental company and regarded my British driving licence with the suspicion usually reserved for forged banknotes. "You are knowing the roundabouts?" he asked, already sounding defeated. I assured him I did. This was, in retrospect, a spectacular overstatement.

Forty minutes later, I was executing my third unplanned circuit of the same roundabout near Santa Pola, watching a man on a scooter weave past with a baguette clutched between his teeth like a dog with a newspaper. My partner was navigating with the confidence of someone who had briefly glanced at a screenshot three days prior. "I think it's the next left," she said, for the fourth time. It was not the next left. It never was.

We found the property eventually, tucked into a hillside development where bougainvillea appeared to be engaged in territorial warfare with the local architecture. The key safe presented our first proper challenge. I had written the code on my phone, which had helpfully died somewhere over the Pyrenees. Cue fifteen minutes of me trying variations of my usual passwords while an elderly German gentleman observed from his adjacent terrace with clinical interest. "You are the new English?" he called out eventually. "I am Dieter. I watch everyone arrive. Better than television." I could not determine if this was friendly or threatening. Possibly both.

The property itself was a revelation after our navigational ordeal. Terracotta tiles, a kitchen that actually contained sharp knives, and a balcony where you could watch the sun descend towards the salt flats with what I can only describe as theatrical self-importance. I stood there with a warm Estrella, feeling smug, until I realised I had been addressing my partner for several minutes about the "stunning sodium chloride deposits" without her present. She had gone to investigate the washing machine, which was apparently "making a noise like a distressed seal."

Dinner that first evening took us to a beachside restaurant in Santa Pola where we met Concha, a waitress whose ability to remember orders without writing anything down bordered on the supernatural. She took one look at my attempt to order in Spanish and switched to English with the efficiency of a trained hostage negotiator. "You want the squid," she announced. It was not a question. The squid was excellent. I told her so. She shrugged, as if personally responsible for the Mediterranean ecosystem.

Walking back through the town that evening, we passed groups of locals conducting what appeared to be permanent outdoor conferences. Old men on benches gestured with the gravity of United Nations delegates. Teenagers on mopeds conducted elaborate social rituals at traffic lights. A woman walked three dogs of such vastly different sizes that they resembled a mobile phone signal indicator.

I found myself thinking, as I often do on first nights abroad, about the peculiar intimacy of holiday rentals. Someone else's books on the shelf. A stranger's choice of coffee maker. The accumulated minor decisions of dozens of previous arrivals, all of whom had stood on this same balcony, perhaps equally lost, perhaps equally relieved. Dieter was still on his terrace when we returned, a small lamp illuminating his vigilant post. He raised a glass. I raised mine back. Some things need no translation.

The distressed seal, incidentally, turned out to be a protective cover on the washing machine drum that I had neglected to remove. Some mysteries solve themselves. Others, like why I am incapable of operating a key safe without technological assistance, apparently never will.