I have never been a natural at reading maps, and my first visit to Bad Waltersdorf in Styria proved this beyond all doubt. My partner handed me the directions with what I can only describe as misplaced confidence, and within twenty minutes of leaving Graz Airport I had us winding down a single-track lane bordered by apple orchards, convinced I was taking the scenic route. The scenic route, it turned out, was actually somebody's private drive, and the elderly gentleman in overalls who emerged from his garage did not look particularly thrilled to see a British-registered saloon blocking his morning. I reversed with the grace of a wounded hippo while my partner made apologetic hand gestures that I suspect only made things worse.

By the time we found the actual turnoff, I was in that peculiar state of frazzled determination that makes you incapable of basic tasks. I misread the key code twice, bashed my knee on the doorframe while hauling in a suitcase, and managed to knock a potted geranium off the windowsill with my elbow. The geranium survived. My dignity did not.

The property itself, once I stopped flapping, revealed itself slowly. It sat in that particular Styrian landscape of rolling green hills and patchwork fields, the sort of countryside that looks almost suspiciously well-kept, as though someone has been out with a comb and scissors overnight. The village of Bad Waltersdorf proper was a short stroll down the lane, close enough that I could already smell something promising from a nearby kitchen garden. My stomach rumbled in a manner I chose to ignore.

Inside, the place had that solid, unhurried character you find in Austrian rural properties. Thick walls, wooden floors that creaked in specific spots, furniture that had clearly seen decades of use without ever becoming shabby. I opened the windows to let in the afternoon warmth and immediately let in a wasp, which began an urgent investigation of the kitchen ceiling. My partner retreated to the bedroom. I armed myself with a tea towel and a copy of the local information folder, reasoning that I could swat and read simultaneously. The wasp escaped through the same window, unharmed and presumably unimpressed.

I spent the next hour in a strange, liminal state of holiday arrival. You know the one. Too early for dinner, too tired to properly explore, too restless to simply sit. I pottered. I examined the coffee maker with the intensity of a bomb disposal expert. I stood in the small garden and watched a tractor move across a distant field with the unhurried pace of someone who has never once misread a map in their life. The air smelled of cut grass and something faintly herbal, maybe the Styrian pumpkin fields that define this region, maybe just my imagination already writing the holiday narrative I wanted.

My partner emerged to find me sitting on the garden bench with a cup of terrible instant coffee, still in my travel clothes, staring at nothing in particular. "Better?" she asked. I thought about the wrong turn, the geranium, the wasp, the knee that was already bruising. I thought about the week ahead, the thermal baths the village is known for, the walking paths I would definitely get lost on, the pumpkin seed oil I would undoubtedly overconsume.

"Getting there," I said, and meant it.