I'd set off from Calais with that smug feeling you get when the sat nav says "arrive by half three" and you've actually left on time. The Ardennes looked glorious in late spring, all rolling green and the odd cow giving me a judgmental stare. Then, somewhere past Bastogne, I took what I firmly believed was a scenic shortcut. It wasn't. It was a farm track. A very long farm track that ended in a locked gate, a furious goose, and the slow realisation that I'd confused Rendeux with a village that sounded nothing like it.

Forty minutes of reversing and muttering later, I finally found the proper road. The cottage sat tucked among beech trees, a solid stone affair with a steep roof that looked like it meant business. I half expected a hobbit to answer the door. Instead, I got a key safe that required the dexterity of a surgeon and the patience of a saint. By the time I wrestled it open, my "scenic arrival" had become a minor comedy of errors, complete with grass stains and a bruised ego.

But stepping inside changed everything. The place smelled of wood polish and something faintly herbal, perhaps from the dried lavender hanging in the kitchen. Exposed beams ran overhead like the ribs of some friendly wooden beast. I dumped my bags and immediately went to investigate the garden, which sloped down toward a stream I hadn't noticed on the listing. The water chuckled over stones, utterly indifferent to my earlier navigational shame.

That evening, I walked into Rendeux village purely to find bread for the morning. I took a wrong turn almost immediately, naturally, and found myself on a narrow path between hedgerows that opened suddenly onto a tiny chapel I'd never have discovered otherwise. Saint something-or-other, the name escapes me, but the door was unlocked and inside someone had left fresh wildflowers in a jam jar. No signs, no opening hours, no gift shop. Just silence and slanted evening light through plain glass windows. I sat on the rough wooden bench longer than intended, thinking about how rarely I stumble upon places that haven't been polished for consumption.

The next morning, determined to be more organised, I set out with a proper map for La Roche-en-Ardene, a town I'd read about. I never reached it. A diversion sent me looping through forests where the road signs seemed more suggestion than instruction, and I emerged somewhere called Marcourt, which I cannot find on any map I now own. There was a bakery, though, and an old woman who sold me a tarte al djote despite my dreadful pronunciation. I ate it on a wall overlooking a valley I couldn't name, watching a heron work its way along a drainage ditch with infinite patience.

By day three, I'd abandoned any pretence of planning. I drove until something looked interesting, then stopped. This is how I found the abandoned railway line, its tunnel mouth gaping like a surprised expression in the hillside, surrounded by elderflower heavy with bloom. I walked a mile along the overgrown track, nettles notwithstanding, until I reached a clearing where someone had clearly camped recently. Fire pit, a few tin cans, nothing sinister. I stood there listening to wood pigeons and the distant sound of a tractor, feeling simultaneously adventurous and slightly ridiculous in my walking shoes that had never walked anywhere more challenging than a supermarket car park.

The cottage became my anchor through all this pleasant chaos. Each evening I'd return with some local cheese or beer, occasionally both, and sit on the terrace watching the bats emerge. The stream provided constant background music. I never did make it to the castle at La Roche, or the famous caves. I saw no famous views, took no iconic photographs. Instead I collected small discoveries: a pond full of tadpoles behind a derelict farmhouse, a village fete where I won nothing at tombola but ate excellent frites, a conversation with a man walking his dog who explained, in elaborate French I mostly misunderstood, the history of local slate mining.

On my final morning, I packed with the reluctance that comes from feeling briefly at home somewhere. The key safe fought me again, one last indignity. Driving away, I passed the chapel I'd found by accident and nearly stopped, but decided some places belong to particular moments. You cannot revisit a wrong turn and expect the same magic. The goose, I noted with satisfaction, was nowhere to be seen.