I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I missed my turning for Oybin by a good twelve miles. There I was, proudly navigating the winding roads of Saxony with the confidence of someone who had definitely not confused "Ost" with "West" on the sat nav. The scenic detour through Lueckendorf was lovely, of course, but my passenger's meaningful silence spoke volumes. Still, we arrived eventually, slightly frazzled and in desperate need of tea.

The property itself sat tucked beneath the dramatic sandstone ridge of the Oybin mountain, a proper fairy-tale arrangement of timber and stone that looked like it had been there since the Brothers Grimm were taking notes. I had booked what the website called a "traditional holiday home," which turned out to be rather more traditional than anticipated when I discovered the heating ran on a wood-burning stove that required actual skill. My first attempt filled the kitchen with smoke and my dignity with holes.

Rather than admit defeat, I suggested a walk to "get our bearings." This was code for "escape the smoky atmosphere and my own incompetence." We wandered without purpose through the village, past the remarkable ruins of the Oybin Monastery and Castle perched on its rocky outcrop, and somehow found ourselves on a path that was definitely not on any map I had studied. The signposts, I noticed, had become rather scarce.

It was here that the magic began. We stumbled upon a small clearing where an elderly gentleman was tending a modest orchard of ancient apple trees. He waved us over with the casualness of someone who regularly collected lost tourists, and through a combination of my appalling German and his patient gestures, he directed us to what he called "the hidden garden." I understood perhaps every third word, but his enthusiasm was infectious.

Following his vague pointing, we descended through a narrow gap between two sandstone formations I would never have noticed from the proper path. Beyond lay a secluded hollow, a natural amphitheatre of rock where someone long ago had placed a simple wooden bench. The afternoon light filtered through in golden shafts, and the silence was profound in that particular way that makes you conscious of your own breathing. We sat for an hour without speaking, two people who had accidentally found something precious precisely because we had been incompetent at following directions.

The next morning, determined to replicate our success, we deliberately set out without the map. This is the behaviour of people who have confused luck with strategy, but fortune favoured our foolishness. A wrong turning near the railway station led us to a tiny bakery where the owner still fired his oven with wood from the surrounding forests. His Streuselkuchen was still warm, and he seemed genuinely puzzled that anyone would want to eat it anywhere other than his cramped parlour surrounded by photographs of grandchildren.

Later, attempting to find the famous narrow-gauge railway that runs through the Zittau Mountains, we became disoriented in a residential street and noticed a small gate ajar. Beyond it, a private garden had been opened that day for some local tradition we never fully understood. An elderly woman pressed cups of elderflower cordial into our hands and showed us her husband's extraordinary collection of hand-carved wooden birds, each species native to the region, each imperfect and utterly charming in its meticulous detail.

By the third day, we had abandoned any pretence of purposeful sightseeing. The ruined castle, the railway museum, the proper attractions all waited patiently while we chased wrong turnings down lanes that grew progressively narrower and more overgrown. We found a pond where local children fed enormous carp that rose like orange shadows from the murky depths. We discovered a chapel so small it could hold perhaps six people, its walls covered in centuries of faded devotional paintings that no heritage organisation seemed to have claimed.

Each evening we returned to our smoky kitchen, now somewhat mastered through necessity, and compared notes on what we had found by accident. The discoveries felt stolen, somehow, as though we had cheated at tourism by refusing to play by the proper rules. There is something peculiarly satisfying about arriving somewhere without the anticipation of arrival, about the moment of recognition that comes unbidden rather than sought.

On our final morning, I attempted to revisit the hidden garden with the wooden bench, following what I believed to be our original route. I searched for an hour among the sandstone outcrops and found nothing that matched my memory. Perhaps I had the wrong gap between rocks, or perhaps places that reveal themselves once choose not to repeat the favour. I prefer to think it remains there, waiting for the next person careless enough with their navigation to deserve its quiet reward.