I have always believed that the best holidays begin with a small disaster, and our trip to Stainz in Styria proved me absolutely right. We had been driving for hours from Graz airport, winding through green hills and past vineyards that looked almost too perfect to be real, when my partner announced with great confidence that he knew exactly where we were going. Ten minutes later we found ourselves down a farm track, face to face with a very unimpressed cow, and I had that particular British sensation of wanting to laugh and apologise simultaneously.

The actual property, when we finally located it, turned out to be a traditional Styrian farmhouse with a proper wooden balcony and flower boxes that someone had clearly tended with genuine affection. I stood in the driveway clutching my rucksack, still slightly shaken from our agricultural detour, and noticed immediately how quiet everything was. Not the uncomfortable silence of a place that has been abandoned, but the purposeful quiet of somewhere that has never needed to be loud.

We dumped our bags and did what any sensible British person does after a long journey: made a cup of tea and stood at the window assessing the weather. The sky was doing that changeable thing that I had foolishly assumed belonged exclusively to our island. Blue patches, grey patches, something vaguely threatening in the distance. I had packed for Alpine sunshine because the forecast had promised it, and I was already beginning to suspect I had made a classic error.

The next morning we set out for what the local map described as a gentle woodland walk. I use the word gentle with some bitterness now. Within twenty minutes the heavens opened in a manner that would have made my Scottish grandmother nod with recognition. We were drenched, genuinely drenched, water running down our necks and into places water should never reach. My supposedly waterproof jacket turned out to be waterproof in the same way that a sieve is waterproof. We squelched back to the farmhouse leaving a trail of wet footprints that I can only hope have since faded.

The following day dawned suspiciously bright. We eyed it with the suspicion of people who have been recently betrayed. Still, the hills were calling, or at least the local walking guide was, and we set off towards a vineyard trail that promised views of the surrounding countryside. For three glorious hours we strode about feeling rather pleased with ourselves, watching butterflies and pretending we were the sort of people who did this regularly. I took photographs of every flower I could not name. The sun beat down. I got a pink stripe across my forehead where my hair parted.

By day four we had developed what I can only describe as a weather-related anxiety. We woke to low cloud and consulted three different apps, each contradicting the others. We decided to risk a shorter circuit through a local nature reserve, reasoning that if we were going to be rained upon, at least we would be rained upon efficiently. In the event we spent the entire walk in a peculiar mist that made everything look slightly mysterious and caused my glasses to fog up completely. I walked into a low branch at one point, which my partner found hilarious until he did the same thing ten minutes later.

What struck me throughout was how the landscape shifted with each change in conditions. The same path looked entirely different in sunshine compared to mist, and the vineyards took on a melancholy beauty in grey light that they simply did not possess under blue skies. I found myself thinking about how much of my walking at home is done in indifferent weather, and how I have come to expect disappointment from the sky. Here, somehow, the uncertainty felt like part of the place rather than an interruption to it.

On our final morning we attempted one last walk, a gentle amble to a nearby viewpoint that we had been saving for decent conditions. The weather, naturally, could not decide what it was doing. We set off in light drizzle, experienced something approaching warmth halfway there, and were battered by a brief but enthusiastic shower on the return. I was muddy, slightly sunburned in patches, and my boots had developed a squeak that would persist for the entire journey home.

Standing on that viewpoint, looking out over a patchwork of fields and forests that stretched to a horizon I could not quite locate through the shifting clouds, I felt something shift in my chest. I am not someone who normally has profound moments on holiday. I am someone who worries about whether I packed enough socks and whether the kettle will be adequate. But something about the combination of wrong turns, unpredictable skies, and walking until my legs ached had settled me in a way I had not expected.

We drove away eventually, leaving behind our borrowed wellies and a half-empty box of tea bags. My partner suggested we might return in autumn, when the vineyards would be properly dramatic and the weather, he said with absolutely no evidence, would surely be more stable. I did not bother correcting him. Some lessons, I have learned, are best discovered through direct experience.