I have never been more grateful for a sat nav than I was driving up to our holiday let in Pruggern. My partner had insisted we did not need one, waving his phone about and declaring, "Google Maps works everywhere." Reader, it does not work everywhere. Somewhere around the Ennstal valley, between a farm shop selling pumpkin seed oil and a very judgmental-looking herd of cows, his signal vanished entirely. We spent twenty minutes circling what I am fairly certain was the same hay barn three times, bickering about whether left or right constituted "up the hill," before a local chap on a tractor took pity and pointed us the right way with a gesture that somehow conveyed both helpfulness and mild despair at tourists.

The property itself sits in the Schladming-Dachstein region, and pulling into the drive felt like exhaling after holding my breath for hours. It is one of those traditional Styrian chalet-style places, all wooden balconies and flower boxes that look effortless but probably require military-level gardening discipline. Ours had clearly been given the once-over before our arrival. I later learned this meant the owner had raced round that morning after the previous guests departed, which explained why the airing cupboard still held that particular warm, clean-linen smell of someone having just finished a very thorough job.

The children bolted inside before I could remind them about shoes, which became immediately irrelevant when I followed and discovered the stone floors were precisely the sort that welcome muddy footprints without fuss. The ground floor had that satisfying open-plan arrangement where the kitchen flows into a living area with an actual wood-burning stove, not one of those decorative affairs that sits there looking smug and unused. My son immediately claimed the window seat for surveillance purposes, announcing he could see "at least four different types of bird, possibly a hawk." It was a pigeon. It was definitely a pigeon.

I will confess something here. I had packed with the optimistic delusion that we would be cooking elaborate alpine-inspired meals every evening, sourcing local ingredients, perhaps casually whipping up a Kaiserschmarrn from memory. The reality, discovered within an hour of arrival, was that the nearest decent-sized supermarket sits back down in Schladming, and our fridge contained whatever we had panic-bought at a motorway services near Graz. The kitchen was perfectly equipped, which only highlighted my own inadequacy. There is something humbling about a well-stocked knife block when your dinner plan hinges on sliced cheese and a jar of gherkins.

The balcony became our headquarters that first evening. We sat out with those gherkins and some very acceptable local wine I had actually remembered to purchase, watching the light change over the Dachstein mountains. The children, mercifully exhausted, stopped bickering long enough to notice that the air smelled different there, greener somehow, cut through with woodsmoke from somewhere down the valley. My daughter asked if we could live there forever. I said we would see, which is parent-code for absolutely not but I am too relaxed to argue.

That first night, I woke at some ridiculous hour needing the loo and stood for a full minute at the window, transfixed by the silence. Not silence exactly, but the absence of city noise, replaced by something deeper and more particular. A stream somewhere, perhaps. The creak of the house settling into itself. I felt briefly and uncomfortably aware of how rarely I experience actual quiet, how my brain has learned to fill every gap with scrolling or worrying or planning the next thing. Then I stepped on a rogue Lego brick someone had abandoned on the landing and the moment passed, replaced by very specific and vocal pain.

We have another four days here. I intend to do very little, achieve even less, and possibly attempt that Kaiserschmarrn with the confidence of someone who has now at least located the proper flour.