I have never been so relieved to see a set of wind turbines in my life. There we were, three hours into what should have been a straightforward drive from Aarhus Airport to Fuglsø Strand, and I had just confidently directed my wife down a farm track that Google Maps swore was a shortcut. It was not a shortcut. It was a muddy dead end belonging to a man named Henrik who was very surprised to find a Vauxhall Corsa attempting to turn around in his beet field.

Henrik, bless him, leaned on his gate with the patience of someone who had definitely seen this before. "British?" he asked, though it was not really a question. I admitted we were trying to reach Fuglsø Strand, the holiday let we had booked for the week. He scratched his chin, gave us directions that involved "the big rock that looks like a sleeping dog," and sent us on our way with a wave that suggested he would be dining out on this story for weeks.

We finally arrived at the little cluster of wooden holiday homes tucked between the trees and the beach, and I immediately understood why Henrik found us amusing. The place was so peacefully Danish, so deliberately unhurried, that our frantic arrival felt like bringing a kazoo to a library. The key was in a lockbox with a code that the owner, Birgit, had emailed me. I had not written it down properly. Of course I had not. I stood there punching in variations while my wife made that particular face she makes when she is choosing not to say something.

Birgit appeared from the neighbouring house before I could work up the courage to call her. She is perhaps sixty, with the practical haircut of someone who swims in the sea year-round and the direct gaze of someone who absolutely does not. "You are the English," she announced, again not a question. She had the code sorted in seconds, then insisted on showing us around personally, pointing out the coffee maker with the gravity of someone demonstrating defibrillator use. "Danish coffee is strong," she said. "You will need it. The sea here is not joking."

She was not wrong about the sea. The beach at Fuglsø is not the gentle, lapping sort that beckons you in. It is proper North Sea coastline, all shifting sand and sudden depth and that particular grey-blue that makes you understand why Scandinavians write such melancholy television. We walked it that first evening, still slightly shell-shocked from the journey, and met a man walking an enormous dog that appeared to be part wolf. He introduced himself as Erik, retired fisherman, and fell into step with us as if we had all arranged this previously.

Erik talked for twenty minutes without my contributing more than nods. He told us about the summer houses, how they had changed, how some people came from Copenhagen and barely left their terraces, how others still fished from the shore with rods their grandfathers made. "You are staying the week?" he asked. I said we were. He considered this. "Good. By Wednesday you will walk slower. By Friday you will forget your phone. By Sunday you will not want to leave." He said this without sentimentality, as one might predict weather. The enormous dog pressed against my leg and I decided not to mention I was already checking my emails less.

That first night, we cooked badly with ingredients from the little supermarket in Ebeltoft, ten minutes up the road. The cooker and I had a disagreement about temperatures. We ate overlooking the water as the light did that prolonged Scandinavian fade, and I thought about Henrik in his beet field, Birgit's certainty about coffee, Erik's predictions for our week. I had arrived frazzled and foolish, the wrong kind of tourist, all urgency and poor preparation. But something in the particular quality of the quiet here, in the unhurried confidence of everyone we had met, suggested that was acceptable. That the place would wait for us to catch up.

I poured another cup of Birgit's strong coffee and watched the last of the daylight disappear over the Kattegat, already walking slower.