I had convinced myself that driving from Billund to South Jutland would be straightforward. I had a phone, a hire car, and that particular brand of overconfidence that comes from having successfully navigated a Tesco car park on a Saturday. Three hours later I found myself down a farm track, staring at a very patient-looking herd of dairy cattle, while my other half sat in silence that spoke volumes.

The sat nav had taken one look at Danish country lanes and simply given up on life.

We eventually found Gronninghoved Strand by following a hand-painted sign for fresh eggs, which tells you everything about my navigational strategy. The cottage sat among low dunes with that weathered, sensible Scandinavian look - nothing flashy, just quietly certain of itself. I loved it immediately and said so, loudly, as if volume could erase the previous ninety minutes of agricultural wandering.

The key was in a lockbox, which I attacked with the code and the desperation of a man who needed a wee and a dignity transplant. Inside, everything smelled of pine and salt. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the Little Belt strait like a painting we hadn't paid for. I opened the door to the deck, promptly walked into the glass frame I'd just closed, and spent the first evening with a cold flannel on my forehead watching ships drift past. My other half laughed for twenty minutes, then made me tea without being asked. Fair exchange.

We'd planned beach walks and maybe a trip to Kolding, but the next morning we got lost again within five minutes. Took a left instead of right at a cluster of birch trees and found ourselves on a narrow path through marram grass that seemed to lead nowhere useful. The sort of path you abandon, normally. But we'd already abandoned dignity, so we carried on.

The path opened onto a tiny cove I'd never find again if you paid me. No signage, no other footprints, just smooth stones and water so clear you could watch hermit crabs having what looked like territorial disputes. We stayed three hours, collected nothing, took photos we later couldn't locate on the phone, and talked about whether we'd finally gone properly middle-aged. Conclusion: yes, and it suited us.

That became the pattern. Deliberate wrong turns. Following fishing rods carried by locals who walked with the unhurried pace of people who'd never met a sat nav. One afternoon we trailed an elderly man through Kolding's backstreets - not stalking, exactly, more hoping he'd lead somewhere interesting. He led us to a bakery in a converted warehouse where the cinnamon rolls required two hands and serious commitment. We ate them on a bench by the Slotssoen, watching swans behave with the entitlement of minor royalty.

Another time we drove until the road simply stopped at a nature reserve sign we couldn't read. Walked in anyway, found a birdwatching hide that smelled of old coffee and patience. Sat there two hours. Saw a kingfisher. Neither of us had ever seen one before. We whispered about it for days like it was a secret we weren't meant to know.

The cottage itself became part of this accidental philosophy. We stopped planning meals and started walking to the little harbour shop at Gronninghoved when we felt like it, buying whatever looked back at us from the counter. Smoked fish we'd never heard of. Bread that went hard in hours because it wasn't designed to last. Ate outside even when the wind required strategic jacket positioning.

On our last evening we tried to find the cove again, properly this time, with a map and determination. Failed completely. Ended up at a different beach, equally empty, watching the sunset turn the Belt bronze and apricot. My other half said maybe some places are meant to be found once, then held as memory rather than revisited. I said that sounded like something I'd read on a tea towel. Then I thought about it for the drive home, through lanes I still couldn't navigate, and decided she was probably right.

We're going back next year. No sat nav. No plans. Just enough overconfidence to get properly lost again.