I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong chalet with someone else's key fob. There I was, jiggling the handle of a very confused family's front door in Neukirchen am Grossvenediger, wondering why my "self check-in" wasn't working, while a small child peered at me through the window like I was the strangest thing he'd seen all week. Turns out I'd wandered one property too far down the lane, distracted by the absurdly dramatic mountain backdrop that makes the Hohe Tauern range look almost fake, like someone painted it on for effect.

The drive from Salzburg had been gorgeous but long, and my brain was still somewhere back on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road where I'd stopped for an overpriced coffee and a moment of panic about whether I'd packed walking boots. Spoiler: I had. Both of them. Left and right. Small victories.

When I finally found the actual chalet, a proper wooden affair with that distinctive Austrian smell of pine and something faintly herby, I was greeted not by silence but by Sepp. Sepp was apparently the neighbour, though he operated more like the village's unofficial welcome committee. He materialised from behind a woodpile, offered me a handshake that could have crushed walnuts, and announced that I'd missed the morning bread delivery. "Tomorrow, six thirty," he said, as if this were a military operation. "Franz comes. Franz does not wait." I nodded seriously, already knowing I'd sleep through it.

Sepp then launched into a twenty-minute monologue about the local skiing, the state of his knees, and his strong opinions on British tourists who try to ski in jeans. He kept glancing at my car, as if assessing whether I looked like the jeans-wearing type. I wasn't, but I felt judged anyway. There's something about Austrian men of a certain age that makes you want to apologise preemptively for your entire country.

The chalet itself was exactly what I'd hoped for, all dark beams and creaky floorboards and a balcony that looked directly up at the Grossvenediger glacier. I stood there with my tea, feeling smug about my life choices, until I realised I'd no idea how to work the underfloor heating and was slowly freezing from the feet up. Back to Sepp I went, who delivered a tutorial in rapid German that I mostly understood through hand gestures and sheer force of will. "You English," he said, shaking his head, but not unkindly.

By evening I'd met Ingrid at the village shop, a woman who seemed personally offended that I only wanted milk and bread rather than her full life story. She gave me both anyway, plus a free lecture on the proper way to store cheese in mountain air. A young couple from Linz arrived at the neighbouring chalet, looking exhausted and slightly alarmed by Sepp, who had apparently already informed them that their parking was "not optimal."

Dinner was a simple affair cooked badly by me, eaten on that balcony as the light did something extraordinary to the glacier. I thought about how I'd nearly broken into a stranger's home, how Sepp probably thought I was an idiot, how Ingrid's cheese advice might actually change my life. The mountains didn't care about any of it. They just sat there, massive and indifferent, while I finished my wine and planned an early start that I absolutely would not stick to.

Franz and his bread would have to wait.