I have never been brilliant with directions, so it will surprise no one that I managed to miss the turning for Flattnitz not once but twice. The first time I blamed the sat nav. The second time, squinting at a wooden signpost half-buried in late October leaves, I had only myself to fault. By the third attempt I was laughing at the absurdity of it, winding up a single-track road through Carinthian woodland with dusk gathering and the first proper chill of autumn biting through the car windows.

That journey set the tone perfectly. Flattnitz sits high in the Gurktal Alps, and arriving in late autumn means accepting that the place operates on its own schedule. The summer hikers have vanished. The ski crowds have not yet arrived. You get something precious and slightly unnerving in between: the mountains entirely to yourself, wearing their first dusting of snow like a tentative costume.

The property itself, a traditional Alpine chalet, materialised through a tunnel of bare larch trees just as I was beginning to wonder if I had invented the entire booking. The key was in the lockbox as promised, though my frozen fingers made retrieving it a comedy of errors that would have embarrassed a safecracker. Stepping inside, the first thing that struck me was the smell: woodsmoke from the stove, something faintly resinous from the timber construction, and that particular cold-weather stillness that comes when a house has been sitting empty, waiting.

I had worried autumn might feel like a consolation prize, too late for alpine meadows, too early for proper winter sport. I was wrong. The season shaped everything. The low sun slanted through windows already at four in the afternoon, turning the pine-clad slopes across the valley gold and then rose and then a bruised purple. I found myself planning my days around this dwindling light, rushing out after breakfast for a walk while the frost still held crunchy underfoot, retreating by mid-afternoon to build up the fire and watch the darkness swallow the mountains.

The chalet's sauna became essential rather than indulgent. There is something about October in the Austrian Alps that gets into your bones, a damp cold that central heating cannot quite dispel. I took to the evening ritual with convert's zeal: twenty minutes sweating, then a mad dash onto the terrace in swimming costume, steam rising from my shoulders, stars pricking through in a sky unpolluted by any nearby town. The first time I lasted perhaps eight seconds. By the week's end I was almost composed about it, though I suspect any passing deer thought me deranged.

Cooking became similarly seasonal. The nearest supermarket was a proper drive, so I shopped like someone preparing for siege: root vegetables, cured meats, the local Kasnudeln I found frozen at a farm shop. The kitchen was well-equipped in that practical Austrian way, nothing fancy but everything solid. I made stews that simmered for hours, filling the house with warmth and onion. In summer I would have been out until evening, grabbing something quick. Autumn demanded this slower rhythm, and the chalet accommodated it.

On my third morning I woke to find the world transformed. Overnight snow, perhaps three inches, had fallen silently. The larch branches that had seemed merely skeletal now carried white weight. I stood with coffee cooling, watching a fox pick careful prints across the meadow below. That moment of stillness, the hush that snowfall brings, made me reflect on how rarely I allow myself such unhurried observation. My usual holidays are packed with achievement, sights ticked off, miles covered. The in-between season at Flattnitz offered no such possibilities. The hiking trails were icy and treacherous in places. The ski lifts sat motionless. One simply had to be present, to accept what was offered.

I did walk daily, though. The paths around Flattnitz lake, partly frozen at the edges now, offered the particular melancholy beauty of late autumn: brown reeds, grey water, the occasional late duck struggling against the turning year. I encountered almost no one. A local man walking his dog, who nodded but did not stop. Once, a group of hunters returning at midday, their voices carrying strangely in the thin cold air.

By my final evening, the first proper storm of winter was building. I stacked extra wood, filled the lamps, felt that primitive satisfaction of preparation. The wind found every gap in the old construction, whistling accompaniment to my last evening of Kasnudeln and local wine. I thought about returning in summer, when the lake would swimmable, the terraces busy, the mountains green rather than grey. I thought about January, the cross-country trails groomed, the ski bus running, the social atmosphere of peak season.

I suspect I will come back at exactly this same odd, in-between time. Autumn at Flattnitz taught me something I keep needing to relearn: that the seasons we overlook often offer the most particular pleasures, if we allow ourselves to match our pace to theirs.