I should have known the holiday was off to a classic start when I confidently strode up to the wrong door at Bratten Strand and tried my key code on a bemused German family's beach house. There I stood, wheelie case in one hand, carrier bag of Danish pastries in the other, wondering why the nice people inside were waving at me through the window rather than letting me in. Turns out I'd wandered two doors down. The actual property, when I finally found it, was mercifully unoccupied by strangers.

The drive up from Aalborg Airport had lulled me into a false sense of competence. North Jutland does that to you. Flat fields, big skies, the odd wind turbine doing its slow pirouette. You start feeling like a local after forty minutes. I even attempted a bit of Danish at a petrol station, which the attendant answered in flawless English with what I choose to believe was admiration rather than pity.

Bratten Strand itself appeared suddenly, as these coastal places do. One moment you're inland among farmland, the next there's that particular quality of light that means the sea is near. The property sat in a quiet row of similar wooden holiday homes, all very Scandi, very understated. Mine had a small decked area out front and what I would later discover was a barbecue that looked like it had seen some things.

The key safe presented my second challenge. I found it eventually, after a minor archaeological dig through a planter box that I now suspect belonged to the neighbours. The code worked, the key turned, and I stepped inside with that particular mix of relief and exhaustion that follows any journey involving budget airlines and unfamiliar road systems.

First impressions? Airy, surprisingly warm, and distinctly Danish in that practical way that makes British holiday cottages feel positively cluttered by comparison. The open-plan living space had that pine smell of a place that's been properly closed up for winter and recently awakened. Large windows faced towards the dunes, though from ground level I could only see the tops of marram grass bending in what I would soon learn was a fairly constant breeze.

I dumped my bags with theatrical exhaustion and immediately went to investigate the important things. Kettle: present. Coffee: I would need to find a supermarket. WiFi password: scribbled on a card next to a lamp that I initially couldn't turn on because Danish light switches are apparently designed to humble foreigners. The lamp worked fine once I located the switch, which was hiding in plain sight, probably laughing at me.

The small kitchen looked functional enough for my limited ambitions, which mainly involved breakfast and the occasional attempt at looking like someone who cooks on holiday. The bedrooms were simple, clean, with that particular firmness to Danish mattresses that suggests a culture with healthier backs than mine.

But it was the outside that finally stopped my chaotic flapping about. I walked round the side of the property, through some soft sand that immediately filled my shoes, and there it was. The proper beach, the wide stretch of Bratten Strand, empty and enormous in the late afternoon light. The Kattegat was doing its grey-green shimmer, and somewhere out there was Sweden, though you'd need better eyes than mine to spot it.

I stood there with sandy socks and a still-partially-frozen pastry, watching a lone dog walker in the distance, and felt that particular shift that happens when a journey's chaos finally settles into something like peace. The wrong door, the planter box excavation, the lamp confusion. They were already becoming the story rather than the stress.

I went back inside, found the proper coffee after all in a cupboard I'd missed, and sat on the deck with my feet up. The German family two doors down waved as they passed. I waved back, trying to look like someone who definitely knew where they were staying all along.