I should have known the Sat Nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through a field of very unimpressed cows. Three and a half hours from Calais, two wrong turns near Erfurt, and one spectacular argument with a roundabout later, my partner and I finally spotted the sign for Herschdorf. Relief lasted approximately four seconds, which is how long it took me to reverse confidently into what I thought was the driveway and mount a kerb with the kind of crunch that makes your soul leave your body.

"Perhaps just focus on parking," my partner said, in that tone people use when they are choosing their words very carefully.

The cottage sat at the edge of the village, a solid Thuringian farmhouse with timber framing that looked like it had been standing since before anyone thought to invent parking sensors. The garden was larger than expected, slightly overgrown in that charming way that suggests the previous guests were either very relaxed or possibly bears. A wooden bench sat beneath an ancient apple tree, already shedding fruit onto the grass with soft, periodic thuds. I chose to interpret this as welcoming applause rather than nature's commentary on my driving.

The key was exactly where the email said it would be, which felt like a small miracle given my track record that afternoon. The door stuck slightly, then gave way with a sigh that matched my own. Inside, the smell of pine and something faintly herby - maybe the dried bundles hanging in the kitchen - wrapped around us like a blanket someone sensible had left out. The beams were lower than I remembered from the photos. I cracked my head on one within ninety seconds, which my partner found so amusing that she actually forgot about the kerb incident for nearly a full minute.

The kitchen was proper country style, not the pretend sort. An actual wood-burning stove sat in the corner, looking at me with the patient expectation of an appliance that knew I would struggle to light it later. The windows opened onto that garden, and beyond it, the hills rolled away in the particular green that only seems to happen in this corner of Germany, somewhere between forest and farmland. A hawk circled lazily above the field opposite. I stood there with my hand on my head, watching it, feeling the particular foolishness of someone who has made a complete mess of arriving somewhere lovely.

That is the thing about first impressions, I suppose. Mine had involved livestock, minor vehicular embarrassment, and now a small lump forming beneath my hair. Yet the cottage simply waited, indifferent to my chaos. The floorboards creaked in friendly greeting as I explored further. Upstairs, the bedroom window framed a view of the Thuringian Forest's edge, distant enough to be misty, close enough to promise walks I would definitely need after all the Apfelstrudel I was already planning to eat in nearby Ilmenau.

My partner found the terrace, which was really just a few chairs and a table set on paving stones, but positioned to catch the last of the afternoon sun. She sat down with the contented sigh of someone who had not recently attacked a kerb. I joined her, nursing both my dignity and my head, watching the light turn golden across those hills. The apple tree continued its soft bombardment. Somewhere, a church bell marked the hour in that unhurried way village bells have.

I thought about how I would tell this story later, probably making the driving sound worse and the arrival more comic than it felt. But sitting there, with the particular quiet of a place that has seen countless chaotic arrivals and never once commented, I felt that specific holiday happiness that comes from knowing you have absolutely nothing to do tomorrow except figure out that wood-burning stove and possibly buy some local beer.

The Sat Nav, I had already decided, was staying in the car for the rest of the week.