I have never been so relieved to see a sign for Rennweg am Katschberg in all my life, and that includes the time I got lost in a multi-storey car park in Swindon for forty minutes. The journey from Salzburg Airport had been straightforward enough at first, or so I thought. I had hired a car that was slightly too large for my abilities, a boxy estate that handled like a supermarket trolley with a wonky wheel, and I had spent the first hour of driving gripping the steering wheel as if it might try to escape.

The mishap, because there is always a mishap, occurred at a petrol station somewhere past Tamsweg. I had pulled in to buy a snack, something I now realise was an act of profound overconfidence. I emerged twenty minutes later with a bag of crisps I did not want, a coffee I could not drink because the lid refused to attach properly, and the sinking realisation that I had locked my car keys inside the vehicle. The keys were sitting on the driver's seat, plainly visible through the window, mocking me. I stood there in the drizzle, a grown man contemplating whether to cry or to attempt breaking into my own hire car with a packet of paprika crisps.

A very patient local man, who I suspect has seen this exact scene play out many times before, helped me contact the hire company. An hour and several embarrassed phone calls later, I was back on the road, significantly behind schedule and muttering apologies to nobody in particular. The mountains, at least, were forgiving. They rose around me in that particular Austrian way, all pine forests and sudden meadows, and I found myself driving slower than necessary just to look at them properly.

By the time I reached the property, it was well past the hour I had promised the key collection. I had worked myself into that particular state of anxious exhaustion where everything feels slightly unreal. The building sat among similar wooden chalet-style properties, all dark timber and angled roofs, with the Katschberg mountains looming behind like a painted backdrop. I half expected someone to shout at me for being late. Instead, the handover was swift and friendly, the sort of efficient warmth I have come to associate with Austrian hospitality, where nobody makes a fuss but everything gets sorted.

Stepping inside, the first thing that struck me was the smell. Wood, obviously, that clean pine scent of a place that spends most of its year closed up and waiting. But underneath it, something homely. The apartment opened into a living space with one of those angular ceilings that follow the roofline, all exposed beams and unexpected corners. I immediately walked into a light fitting that hung lower than I had estimated, which felt like a fitting continuation of my afternoon.

I dumped my bags without unpacking and stood at the window. The view was of neighbouring chalets and beyond them, ski slopes that in late spring had turned to grassy ribbons. A few patches of snow clung on in shaded spots, stubborn and slightly sad looking. I thought about my locked car, my spilled coffee, my general unsuitability for competent travel, and I laughed. Properly laughed, for the first time that day. There is something about arriving somewhere after a journey has gone wrong that makes the arrival itself feel earned. I had not glided into this holiday. I had stumbled, literally in the case of the light fitting, and yet here I was.

The kitchen was compact but well-equipped, the sort of place where someone had actually thought about what you might need rather than just filling space with appliances. I made a cup of tea with the concentration of a person performing a minor surgical procedure, aware that my coordination had not been reliable so far. It tasted perfect. I sat on the small balcony as evening came on, watching the light change over the mountains, and felt the particular peace of knowing I did not need to drive anywhere else today.

That first night, I slept better than I had in weeks, the deep sleep of someone who has been slightly humbled by their own incompetence and found the world kind anyway.