I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got my first glimpse of the Baltic Sea through a windscreen plastered with seagull mess. Three hours from Hamburg, two wrong turns near Kappeln, and one overly optimistic shortcut down a farm track later, my partner and I finally crawled into Ostseeresort Olpenitz with our nerves frayed and our stomachs roaring. The sat-nav had taken us past a field of very judgmental-looking sheep who, I swear, were laughing at our mud-splattered Citroen.

The Hakuna Matata itself rose up like a promise of better things - all sleek Scandinavian lines and enormous windows that caught the late afternoon light bouncing off the Schlei fjord. I was too busy gawping at the balcony to notice the step, went flying with my weekend bag, and landed in a spectacular heap on the decking. My partner offered a hand, then immediately asked what was for tea. Priorities, I suppose.

The kitchen, as it turned out, was magnificent enough to make my clumsiness worthwhile. Proper German engineering throughout - induction hob, oven you could fit a small child in, and a fridge that actually chilled things below the tepid British standard. We had grand plans to cook properly, to embrace the local larder, to become the sort of people who casually throw together a fish supper after a bracing coastal walk.

Reality arrived the next morning at the weekly market in Kappeln, which we'd been told was unmissable. It was, though perhaps not for the reasons I'd imagined. I approached a fishmonger with the confidence of someone who'd once watched a Rick Stein programme and attempted to order two decent-sized plaice in my schoolboy German. What I actually requested, judging by the man's expression, was either a marital proposal or a discussion about his sister's bicycle. He kindly sold me some excellent smoked fish anyway, plus something unidentifiable in a jar that I later discovered was pickled herring in cream sauce. We ate it on crackers with too much beer and felt terribly continental until the heartburn kicked in at 3am.

The resort's location proved perfect for working off culinary excesses. We walked the coastal path towards Schoenhagen, arguing about whether the distant white blobs were seals or particularly buoyant plastic bags. They were seals, apparently. I couldn't see them without my glasses, which I'd left in the Hakuna Matata's extremely fancy coffee machine. Don't ask.

By day three, my cooking ambitions had curdled slightly. The local Aldi became my guilty refuge - German supermarkets put ours to shame, frankly - and I found myself gravitating towards the ready-made potato salad and pre-cooked sausages with the enthusiasm of a student rediscovering Pot Noodles. We did attempt one proper meal: a heroic joint of pork from the butcher in Arnis, roasted with apples we'd nicked from a roadside tree. It was either the best thing I've ever cooked or I was simply starving. The line blurs on holiday.

The pub situation in Olpenitz itself is, shall we say, limited. We found a beach kiosk doing excellent frites with mayonnaise - the proper Dutch-German way, none of your ketchup nonsense - and a hotel restaurant where we ate schnitzel the size of hubcaps while a wedding party got increasingly rowdy in the next room. The groom's uncle tried to teach us Schleswig-Holstein drinking songs. We failed miserably but applauded his commitment.

What I loved, really loved, was the morning ritual. Coffee on that balcony, watching the boats drift past, planning elaborate lunches we'd half-achieve. One day we managed proper Labskaus from a recipe I'd screenshot in a panic - corned beef, beetroot, the whole peculiar pink mess of it. My partner declared it "interesting" in that tone that means "never again." We finished it anyway, because holiday calories don't count and pride is a terrible thing to waste.

The mishaps made it, I think. The seagull windscreen, the fishmonger confusion, the coffee machine glasses incident. By the final evening, we were eating supermarket cheese in our pants at midnight, completely content, slightly sunburned, and already arguing about whether to book again next year. We did, obviously. Some places get under your skin, or perhaps it's just the salt and the butter and the peculiar satisfaction of feeding yourself badly but happily in a beautiful place.