I should have known the holiday was going to be interesting when I got us lost before we'd even reached the property. There I was, smugly following what I insisted was a "scenic route" through Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while my other half sat in the passenger seat watching the same five wind turbines pass by for the third time. Turns out I'd confused Altefaehr with a completely different village beginning with A. We lost forty minutes, a fair bit of dignity, and very nearly each other. But honestly? That wrong turn ended up being the making of the trip.

We finally rolled up to our holiday home in Altefaehr, which sits on the mainland just across from Rugen Island, and I was still muttering about road signs. The place itself was proper charming - traditional German cottage feel, nothing flashy, just solid and welcoming with that satisfying creak of proper wooden floors. I dumped my bags with the theatrical exhaustion of someone who'd survived genuine hardship, despite having done nothing but sit in a car and make poor navigational choices.

The real magic started when we decided to "just have a wander" that first evening. We'd meant to stroll down to the ferry terminal, maybe work out the crossing to Stralsund for the next day. Instead, we took a left where we should've taken a right, found ourselves on a narrow path between hedgerows, and suddenly there was the most ridiculous sunset happening over the Strelasund. No one else about. Just us, some extremely bold rabbits, and water turning absolutely bonkers shades of orange and pink. My phone died trying to capture it, which felt like the universe telling me to just be present for once.

That set the pattern. Every day we deliberately set off without much of a plan, and every day something odd and lovely turned up. We found a tiny beach near Devin - not the proper sandy sort, more shingle and marsh grass - where a local bloke was walking his enormous dog and told us about a cafe in someone's garden that only opens when the owner feels like it. We never found that cafe, which became a running joke, but we did stumble across a memorial to the old Rugen Causeway that I'd never heard of. Just there, tucked between trees, this stone marker to a railway that used to connect the island before the 1930s. History hiding in plain sight while tourists rush past to the big attractions.

The best accidental discovery came from my stubborn refusal to admit I was lost again. We'd been cycling - or rather, I'd been confidently leading us on what I claimed was a loop - and somehow ended up at a dead end by the water near a place called Ziegelgraben. Absolute nowhere. Except there was this rough little landing stage, and an elderly woman in wellies pulling a tiny boat up with what looked like a homemade winch. She nodded at us, completely unbothered by two confused Brits on bikes, and pointed across the water to where you could just make out Stralsund's old town towers. "Shorter than the ferry," she said, in heavily accented but perfect English, then laughed at our faces.

We didn't take her boat, mind. But we sat on that landing stage for an hour, sharing the sandwiches we'd packed, watching her potter about with ropes and buckets. It was nothing. It was brilliant.

By the end of the week, I'd completely stopped looking at maps. My other half found this both miraculous and deeply suspicious. But Altefaehr and its surroundings had taught me something I clearly needed: that getting properly, stupidly lost isn't failing at holiday, it's the whole point. The ferry to Rugen was lovely when we finally took it. Stralsund's old town was gorgeous. But it's those accidental moments - the wrong turns, the dead ends, the strangers who don't mind you being there - that I'll actually remember.

Though I did buy a proper map for the drive home. Some lessons only need learning once.