I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I tried to unlock the wrong Sandvig cottage with my NOVASOL key fob for a solid five minutes, much to the amusement of a Danish pensioner walking his terrier. Turns out there are several identical white wooden houses along that stretch, and mine was the one with the slightly wonky blue window box, not the one with the slightly wonky red window box. An easy mistake, surely.

The ferry from Ystad had been surprisingly pleasant, if you enjoy watching seagulls argue over crisps and paying six pounds for a coffee. By the time I rolled off at Ronne and drove the winding coastal road north, I was already fantasising about dinner. The cottage in Sandvig itself was charming in that understated Scandinavian way - clean lines, a tiny kitchen with more gadgets than surface area, and a view of Hammeren that made me feel rather smug about my booking skills. But the real revelation came when I opened the fridge. Empty, obviously, save for a complimentary bottle of local Bornholmer snaps that tasted like liquidised Christmas tree. I took this as a challenge.

The next morning I cycled to Sandvig's little harbour, where a fisherman was selling smoked herring straight from his boat. I bought four, feeling terribly authentic, and attempted to recreate a traditional Bornholm breakfast back at the cottage. Let us just say that filleting fish at 7am with a blunt holiday-home knife and a hangover from the snaps is not my finest culinary hour. The herring ended up more abstract sculpture than meal, and I resorted to toast and the excellent Danish butter I'd picked up at the SuperBrugsen in Allinge.

Allinge became my salvation and my downfall. The Saturday market there is genuinely brilliant - local cheeses, honey, those ridiculous pastries Danes pretend are just casual breakfast food. I spent an embarrassing amount of kroner on a wheel of smoked cheese that smelled like a bonfire in a barn, then realised I had no idea how to incorporate it into actual meals. My cottage cooking quickly became experimental. One evening I attempted "rustic Bornholm stew" with local root vegetables and some dubious pork cuts. It simmered for three hours and tasted of absolutely nothing. I ate it standing at the tiny kitchen counter, staring at the sea, wondering if adulthood was supposed to feel like this.

The pubs and proper eating out saved me from complete kitchen humiliation. Cafe Klippen in Sandvig became my regular morning spot - strong coffee, excellent rundstykker, and a waitress who remembered my order by day three, which felt like being accepted into a secret society. For proper dinners, I walked to Allinge most evenings. Restaurant Nordbornholm does something marvellous with local lamb and foraged herbs that made my stew attempts feel even more tragic. The Bornholm Bryghus in Svaneke was worth the slightly longer cycle for their craft beers, though I wobbled significantly more on the return journey.

My proudest moment came on my final evening. I bought fresh cod from the harbour, proper new potatoes from the market, and a bunch of dill that actually looked like dill. I cooked simply, drank a sensible amount of wine, and ate on the cottage's little terrace as the light stretched across the water. It was not sophisticated. It was barely seasoned. But after a week of culinary chaos and discovery, it tasted exactly like a holiday should.