I have never been great with satnavs, so it was hardly a surprise when ours decided that the best route to our holiday let in Liege involved three laps of a roundabout and what I can only describe as a brief tour of someone's driveway. My partner, sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression she saves just for me, suggested perhaps I should have written down the actual address rather than relying on a screenshot of a map pin. I told her technology was meant to be our friend. She reminded me that technology and I have what therapists might call a complicated relationship.

The property was a Durler, one of those traditional Belgian country houses you see in brochures and assume cannot possibly be as charming in real life. We found it eventually, down a narrow lane just outside Liege proper, surrounded by fields that looked almost aggressively picturesque. I reversed into what I thought was the parking area, heard a crunch, and discovered I had parked on top of a wooden pallet that had been left precisely where a wooden pallet should not be. My partner did not say anything. She did not need to.

The key was in a lockbox, which sounds simple enough unless you are someone who can struggle with a ring pull on a can of beans. I stood there in the drizzle, entering the code wrong four times before realising I had been reading a six upside down. The door finally opened with that satisfying clunk of old Belgian craftsmanship, and we stepped inside to the smell of wood polish and what I later learned was a lavender sachet in the wardrobe.

The first thing that struck me was the ceiling. Proper beams, dark and ancient, the sort that make you instinctively duck even when they are well above head height. I ducked anyway. My partner walked straight through, of course, because she possesses something I lack, which is basic spatial awareness. The living room had a wood-burning stove that looked like it had been stolen from a fairy tale, and windows that let in the sort of green-grey afternoon light that makes you want to put the kettle on immediately.

I put the kettle on. It was an electric one with a slightly wobbly base, and I spent a good minute trying to work out if this was a design feature or another example of my gift for breaking things simply by touching them. The kitchen was compact but properly equipped, not one of those holiday lets where you open a drawer to find a single blunt knife and a tin opener from 1973. There was even a coffee maker that looked like it required a degree in engineering, which I decided to tackle after tea.

Upstairs, the bedrooms had that particular stillness of old houses, the kind that makes you speak in a slightly hushed voice without quite knowing why. The bed was enormous and covered in a quilt that I suspected was locally made. I sat on the edge to test the mattress, which was perhaps a mistake, because I immediately wanted to lie down and abandon all further exploration. My partner appeared in the doorway holding two mugs of tea and informed me that if I fell asleep now, my body clock would be ruined for days. She was right, obviously. She usually is.

I unpacked with the enthusiasm of a man who had packed badly and knew it. Everything I actually needed was at the bottom of the suitcase, buried under three jumpers I had brought "just in case" despite it being June. The bathroom was modern where it mattered and traditional where it charmed, with a shower that had approximately seventeen settings, all of which I tested until finding one that did not feel like either a gentle mist or an assault.

By evening, the mishaps of arrival had settled into something like contentment. We walked briefly down the lane, just to stretch our legs and establish our bearings, passing a field of cows who regarded us with the profound indifference cows reserve for tourists. Back at the Durler, I managed to light the wood burner without setting off any alarms or singeing my eyebrows, which I counted as a significant personal victory.

Sitting there with the fire crackling and the unfamiliar quiet of the Belgian countryside pressing against the windows, I found myself reflecting on how I always arrive anywhere in a state of mild chaos, convinced that proper travellers handle these things with grace. Perhaps they do. Perhaps they do not write down addresses or reverse over pallets or struggle with lockboxes. But there is something about the particular peace of a place like this that makes your own incompetence feel less like a failing and more like a personality trait you have simply learned to work around.

Tomorrow we would explore Liege itself, the cathedral, the Sunday market at La Batte if we timed it right, perhaps a waffle that would ruin all other waffles forever. But for now, there was just the fire, the creak of old wood settling, and the growing realisation that I had already, despite everything, started to relax.