I have never been so relieved to see a petrol station in my life. Three hours into our drive to the Harz, I realised I had left my phone charger at home, which in 2024 is roughly equivalent to forgetting your trousers. My partner Dave gave me that look - the one that says "I love you but I also cannot believe you sometimes" - and we pulled into a service station near Gottingen where I bought the most overpriced cable in recorded history. Twelve euros for what was essentially string and hope. Still, we were back on the road, Dave navigating with his phone, me navigating with mine, both of us pretending we had not just had a minor domestic about whose responsibility chargers fundamentally are.

The Harz mountains proper start to announce themselves gradually. You notice the roads getting narrower, the villages getting sleepier, the occasional witch silhouette on a road sign reminding you that this whole region leans heavily into its folklore. We were staying in Thale, a small town on the northeastern edge of the range, in a proper timber-framed holiday home that I had booked after approximately four glasses of wine and a determination to "get away from it all." The property sat on the edge of town, close enough to walk to the centre, far enough to pretend we were rustic pioneers.

Our first encounter with a local came before we even reached the front door. A man in his sixties, wearing what I can only describe as a very committed walking outfit - proper boots, proper sticks, proper hat with a feather - emerged from the neighbouring garden and immediately began telling us, in excellent but heavily accented English, that he had lived there since 1987 and had watched "many English come and go." His name was Gunther. He did not ask our names. He informed us that the previous occupants had been "too loud" and that he appreciated "the quiet type." Dave and I immediately became the quiet type, nodding with the enthusiasm of people who had not yet unpacked and could still be evicted by neighbourly disapproval.

Gunther then produced, from a pocket I had not previously noticed, a small flask of something clear and herbal, and insisted we toast our arrival. The liquid tasted like pine trees apologising for something. He explained, with some pride, that he made it himself from berries gathered on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz. I mentioned we might walk up there during our stay, and his expression shifted to something between pity and amusement. "Tourists walk," he said. "Locals know." He did not elaborate. I am still, weeks later, wondering what locals know.

The key collection involved another character entirely. The property manager, a woman called Frau Muller who ran the arrangement from a bakery in town, greeted us with the warmth of someone who had just been interrupted during a very important cake-related task. She spoke rapid German, then equally rapid English when she detected my panicked expression, switching between the two with the ease of someone who had done this thousands of times. She handed over keys, a folder of instructions, and a loaf of bread that she said was "for the morning, because you will need it." I thought this was charming hospitality. Later I understood it was practical warning - the local supermarket closed at six, and we had arrived at ten past.

That first evening, we walked into Thale proper, still slightly stunned from travel and herbal liquor. The town was quiet in that particular way small German towns are quiet on weekdays, everything orderly and closed and faintly expectant. We found one restaurant open, a traditional place near the Bodetal gorge entrance, and ate schnitzel while a waitress called Petra told us about her daughter in Hanover, her bad knee, and her opinion that the Harz had been "better before the tourists discovered it." She said this while serving tourists, with no apparent irony, and I found something genuinely comforting in that contradiction. She was not performing friendliness. She was simply being herself in our general direction, and that felt like a gift.

Walking back in the dark, the timber framing of our temporary home looming against the mountain darkness, Dave observed that we had spoken to more strangers in three hours than we typically managed in a month in London. He was right. There is something about arriving somewhere new that strips away your usual defences, leaves you slightly raw and more receptive. Or perhaps it was just that Gunther and Petra and Frau Muller were the sort of people who filled space without waiting for invitation, who assumed connection rather than requiring it to be earned.

I thought about that charger, still sitting in our London flat. Twelve euros for a replacement seemed trivial now. Some things you need to buy twice to understand what they are worth. Some things you cannot buy at all - the particular generosity of strangers who decide, in the first moments of your arrival, that you might be worth bothering with after all.