I have never been so relieved to see a windmill in my life. There we were, my partner and I, crawling along a Flemish country lane at roughly the pace of a determined snail, having missed the turning for our holiday let not once but three times. The sat nav had given up entirely and was suggesting we drive to a field. I had just declared, with the confidence of a man who had not read the directions, that the cottage was definitely to the left when we spotted it. To the right. Naturally.

The property itself, a sturdy brick affair near Diksmuide, looked reassuringly Flemish. Red tiles, sensible windows, the sort of place that has seen a few things and kept its counsel. We tumbled out of the car, slightly hysterical from the journey, and were immediately intercepted by our neighbour. Piet, as he introduced himself, was watering a single pot plant with the intensity of a man defusing a bomb. He looked us up and down, noted our London number plate with a small nod of resignation, and informed us that we had arrived during "the quiet week." This, we later learned, meant nothing of the sort.

Piet's wife, Greet, appeared from behind a hedge as if summoned by some invisible Flemish alarm system. She was carrying a plate of speculoos biscuits and wearing an expression of profound curiosity. Within four minutes she had established our entire family history, our opinions on Brexit, and the fact that my partner cannot eat gluten. The biscuits were swiftly withdrawn and replaced with cheese. "The English," she said, not unkindly, "always forget to mention this."

The true character of the place revealed itself at the local frituur, which Piet had insisted we visit before unpacking. The woman behind the counter, Ria, had apparently been expecting us. "Piet called," she said simply, as if this explained everything. She recommended the stoofvlees friet with the authority of someone who had never made a poor culinary decision in her life. When I attempted to order in my schoolboy French, she fixed me with a look of infinite patience and replied in flawless English that they spoke Dutch here, actually, but nice try. My partner found this hilarious. I found another beer.

That evening, attempting to assemble a basic salad, we discovered that the cottage's previous occupant had left behind a single courgette and a note in three languages. The note wished us "gezelligheid" and warned about the oven, which ran "a little warm." This proved to be the understatement of the century. The courgette was reduced to something approaching charcoal before we had even located the oven gloves. Piet, drawn by the smell or perhaps by some sixth sense developed over decades of neighbourly vigilance, appeared at the back door with a bottle of Westmalle and a small fire extinguisher. He did not seem surprised to need neither.

Sitting in the garden that night, slightly singed but content, we could hear Greet and Piet having what sounded like a spirited discussion about our driving. The word "London" featured prominently. I should have felt embarrassed, perhaps, but there was something about the place that disarmed you. The flat landscape, the enormous sky, the matter-of-fact kindness of people who had seen plenty of tourists come and go and still bothered to learn your name.

I thought about how we had arrived frazzled and slightly lost, how we had been folded into this small community without ceremony or fuss, how a burnt courgette had become a shared joke before we had even properly introduced ourselves. There is something quietly radical about places that refuse to perform charm, that simply are what they are and let you catch up at your own pace. We were not in Bruges with the crowds and the chocolate shops. We were somewhere else entirely, somewhere that asked nothing of us but to show up, preferably with better directions, and be willing to laugh at ourselves.

The windmill turned slowly in the distance. Somewhere, a dog barked. Piet's pot plant, I suspected, was receiving its final watering of the evening. We had been in Diksmuide for less than six hours, and already it felt like the sort of place that would stay with us long after we worked out how to operate the oven properly.