I should have known the Sat Nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send us up what looked like a goat track somewhere past Cluses. There we were, my partner Dave and I, winding through the Haute-Savoie with a boot full of ski gear and enough snacks to survive a small siege, convinced we were minutes from our chalet in Samoens. The reality, as is so often the case with my holiday planning, was rather different.

The mishap came at a roundabout just outside the village. I was navigating, which should have been Dave's first warning. "Left," I said, with the confidence of someone who had briefly glanced at a map three hours ago. Dave turned left. We immediately found ourselves on a road that grew narrower, then steeper, then alarmingly unpaved. A local in a battered Renault waved us down with the weary expression of someone who had redirected many lost tourists. "Samoens centre?" he asked, before we'd even spoken. I nodded sheepishly. He pointed back the way we'd come. We had, in classic fashion, managed to head directly away from our destination while feeling terribly pleased with ourselves.

By the time we actually reached the chalet, dusk was settling over the Giffre valley and my carefully curated playlist had long since given way to tense silence. The property sat on a quiet lane, traditional Savoyard wood and stone, with that satisfying heaviness of a building that has seen proper winters. I fumbled with the key safe code, fingers numb from altitude and mild panic, while Dave made pointed comments about my navigational prowess.

Then the door opened, and something shifted. The smell hit first - that particular alpine combination of woodsmoke and old timber and cold stone. The entrance hall was simple, functional, with sturdy boots lined up on a rack and coats hung with the casual order of people who actually use this place properly. I dumped my bag too hard and knocked over an umbrella stand, because of course I did. Dave laughed, properly this time, and I felt the tension of the journey start to loosen its grip.

The kitchen was compact but well-equipped, someone having clearly thought about what you actually need when you've spent the day on mountain trails or, in our case, getting comprehensively lost on French roads. I put the kettle on with the automatic ritual of the British abroad, that peculiar comfort of tea in foreign surroundings. Through the window, the last light caught the mountains, and I stood there with two mismatched mugs, feeling the particular foolishness of someone who had stressed about arrival time when the mountains clearly could not care less.

We explored properly after that first cup. The living area had that lived-in quality I always hope for in a rental - not pristine hotel sterility, but the sense that good holidays had happened here before. Board games slightly battered at the corners. A bookshelf with the usual suspects in multiple languages. Someone had left a half-used candle that smelled faintly of vanilla.

I found myself reflecting, as I always do in these moments, on how much energy I waste on the getting-there anxiety. The wrong turn, the key safe fumble, the umbrella stand incident - in six months I will remember none of it. What I will remember is standing in that kitchen, mountain light fading, Dave already investigating the local cheese situation with the dedication of a man who takes his fromage extremely seriously.

The morning would bring proper exploration of Samoens itself, the village centre with its traditional architecture, perhaps a coffee in the square before considering what mountain activity we might actually be fit enough to attempt. But that first evening was simply about arrival, about the particular peace of finally being somewhere after the chaos of getting there.

I poured a second cup. The mountains stayed silent and magnificent outside. Dave emerged from the fridge with an alarming quantity of reblochon. We were, despite everything, exactly where we needed to be.