I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I put the sat nav into German by mistake somewhere near Graz and spent twenty minutes following directions to what turned out to be a petrol station forecourt. There I was, proudly reversing into a parking spot, convinced I'd arrived at the Lachtal Schonberg, only to realise the "property" was four pumps and a vending machine that ate my two-euro coin without so much as a chocolate bar in return.

The actual journey from Graz Airport had been rather pleasant until that point. Styria unfolds like a proper picture postcard, all rolling meadows and sudden dark forests that make you feel you've wandered into a Brothers Grimm tale, hopefully the cheerful version without any ovens involved. I wound through valleys where every village seemed to have its own church spire poking through the morning mist, and more than once I pulled over simply to let a tractor pass, which in Britain would have me drumming the steering wheel but here felt somehow ceremonial.

Finding the proper turn for Lachtal Schonberg proved my first genuine adventure. The road narrowed to something that could generously be called a lane, then to something that could generously be called a suggestion. I passed a wooden sign pointing toward a walking trail, then another, then realised I'd been following walking trail markers for ten minutes and was now on a gravel track with grass growing proudly down the middle. A farmer leaning on a gate watched me approach with the patient expression of someone who has seen this particular drama many times before. He directed me back with gestures that involved a lot of pointing at the sky, which I eventually understood meant "go back to the top of the hill and try again."

The second attempt delivered me properly to the property, perched on a slope with views that quite literally made me stop the car and simply stare. The Schonberg sits in that particular spot where the valley opens up like a stage curtain drawing back, revealing ridge after ridge of forested mountains fading into blue distance. My little terrace, I would discover, caught the morning sun in a way that made even instant coffee feel like a civilised ritual.

But the getting lost, as these things so often do, proved the making of the holiday. The following morning, intending to find the village shop I'd spotted on the proper road, I took what I believed to be a shortcut through a meadow path. The path dwindled to nothing within minutes, but rather than retreat, I pressed on through shoulder-high grasses buzzing with insects, convinced I could see a roofline ahead. The roofline turned out to be a hunting platform, but beyond it I stumbled upon a small chapel, barely larger than a garden shed, with a wooden bench outside and a visitors' book inside going back to 1987. Someone had left wildflowers in a jar. I sat there for an hour, feeling rather pleased with my incompetence.

That became the pattern. The marked trail to the "scenic viewpoint" was pleasant enough, but the wrong turning I took on the way back led me to a farm selling pumpkin seed oil pressed on the premises, the owner pressing samples into my hands with the enthusiasm of a man who rarely receives unexpected visitors. I bought two bottles I hadn't planned on and carried them with a sense of genuine triumph.

By the third day, I stopped bothering with the map entirely. The Lachtal Schonberg became my base for deliberate wandering, setting out each morning with no particular destination beyond "roughly that direction" and returning with stories of mountain huts where I was fed dumplings by grandmothers who spoke no English and required no payment beyond my evidently entertaining attempts at German pleasantries.

On my final evening, watching the sun set from that blessed terrace with one of my accidentally discovered pumpkin seed oils drizzled over tomatoes, I reflected on my petrol station arrival with genuine affection. Sometimes the wrong turn delivers you exactly where you needed to be, even if it takes the scenic route to get there.