I have never been so relieved to see a wooden cow in all my life.

The journey to Rickenbach had been one of those classic British-in-Germany affairs where you start with quiet confidence and end with your passenger-seat map-reading dignity in tatters. We left Freiburg in good spirits, full of Kaffee und Kuchen and the smug satisfaction of having remembered to pack the Sat Nav. What we had not remembered, crucially, was to update said Sat Nav since approximately 2014. This meant that somewhere between Elzach and our destination, the cheerful voice began directing us down roads that grew progressively narrower, then unpaved, then apparently into someone's private woodland. My partner, who was driving, developed that particular set to the jaw that I have learned not to comment upon.

The mishap, when it came, was almost embarrassingly predictable. We reached what the machine insisted was our turning, only to find a farm gate, a very large dog of indeterminate breed, and a gentleman in traditional dress who looked at our hire car with the weary patience of someone who has seen this many times before. Through a combination of my school German, frantic hand gestures, and the dog's apparent decision that we were beneath its notice, we established that we had overshot by a good two kilometres and were currently attempting to check into a cattle shed.

The actual property, when we finally located it, announced itself with that wooden cow I mentioned: a hand-carved fellow standing by the mailbox, wearing a bell and an expression of permanent mild surprise. I could relate.

The house itself sat at the edge of Rickenbach proper, a traditional Schwarzwald construction with the distinctive deep eaves and that combination of dark timber and pale plaster that makes the region so instantly recognisable. My first impression, once I had stopped laughing at the cow and started actually looking, was of how quietly it occupied its surroundings. No dramatic views to shout about from this angle, just the soft rise of wooded hillside and the sense that the forest was waiting politely nearby rather than pressing in.

The key was where the owner had promised, in a little metal box with a combination code that I managed to get wrong three times before my partner intervened with the careful tone of someone who has been sitting in a car with a malfunctioning navigation system for the better part of an afternoon.

Stepping inside brought that particular pleasure of holiday rentals: the moment of wondering whether the reality will match the photographs, and the relief when it does. The wooden beams were genuinely old, not the decorative kind that get glued to ceilings in city flats. The kitchen smelled faintly of pine, which I later realised was the cleaning products rather than the structure itself, but the effect was the same. Someone had left a small bottle of Schwarzwald schnapps on the counter with a handwritten note wishing us a pleasant stay. I decided immediately that this was the finest hospitality I had ever encountered, though I suspect the cattle shed detour had lowered my standards somewhat.

I made the mistake of attempting to operate the coffee machine before unpacking, which resulted in a minor flood and my partner's second jaw-clench of the day. The machine, it transpired, required a specific sequence of button presses that I had not performed in the correct order. We mopped together in companionable silence, the sort that follows minor domestic disasters when both parties are too tired to assign blame.

By the time we had sorted ourselves, the light was beginning to fade and the surrounding trees were doing that thing where they turn from green to something more complicated and shadowed. I stood at the window with my improperly made coffee and watched a squirrel undertake what appeared to be a detailed survey of the garden fence. The quiet was not absolute, I noticed: there was birdsong, the distant sound of a tractor from somewhere down the valley, and somewhere in the middle distance, the faint clank of what I chose to believe was our wooden cow's bell in the evening breeze.

We had arrived. We had got lost, nearly moved into a barn, flooded a kitchen appliance, and earned the silent judgment of a local dog. And now, finally, we were here: slightly dishevelled, thoroughly imperfect, and entirely ready to see what the Black Forest proper had to offer once we had recovered enough to leave the house.