I should have known the holiday proper had begun when I put the sat nav into Norwegian and it immediately tried to send me up what looked like a goat track. We'd flown into Oslo, picked up the hire car, and set off towards Buskerud with that particular optimism that comes from having packed decent walking boots and absolutely no idea what lay ahead.

The drive itself was gorgeous in that understated Scandinavian way. Forests that went on forever, the occasional red wooden house looking like someone had dropped it from the sky, and lakes so still you felt rude even breathing near them. Then came the mishap. I'd read that our cabin was near Norefjell, which I had confidently pronounced "Nor-ay-fjell" in my head for weeks. At a petrol station just past Kroderen, I asked the attendant for directions using my best attempt. He looked at me with the patient expression of someone who has heard many things in his time, then slowly explained that I had apparently been asking for a place that sounded like a medical condition. We both had a laugh about it, though I suspect his was the kinder sort. I bought an overpriced chocolate bar out of sheer gratitude and embarrassment in equal measure.

The cabin, when we finally found it, sat among birch trees with a view down towards the valley that made me forget entirely about my linguistic humiliation. It was one of those proper Norwegian timber places, all dark wood and sensible design, with a wood-burning stove that I immediately decided was my new best friend. The sort of place where you take your shoes off without being asked, where everything has its purpose and nothing is trying too hard to impress you.

What struck me first was the quiet. Not the absence of sound, exactly, because there were birds and the occasional creak of timber, but a quality of silence that felt almost physical. I stood on the deck with a cup of tea that first evening, watching the light change over the hills, and felt that particular shift that happens when you finally let go of whatever you've left behind.

We'd planned to do all the obvious things, of course. The ski area at Norefjell itself, the proper trails, the marked paths with their sensible red paint on the trees. But the next morning, still slightly fuzzy from travel and perhaps one aquavit too many, we set off walking without much of a plan and promptly got ourselves lost within twenty minutes. The trail we'd intended to follow had forked, we'd taken the wrong option while arguing about whether that bird was a proper eagle or just a very ambitious buzzard, and suddenly the red paint marks had vanished entirely.

It was marvellous.

We found a small lake, barely more than a pond really, tucked between ridges where no path seemed to go. The water was so clear you could watch fish hanging in the depths like they were suspended in air. We sat on a rock and ate the emergency chocolate I'd wisely packed, and neither of us suggested trying to find our way back immediately. Getting lost had become the point.

That set the pattern for the week. Each day we'd set out with some vague intention, some proper destination, and each day we'd somehow wander off course and find something better. A meadow full of wildflowers that smelled like honey and something else I couldn't name. A stream where the water ran over smooth stone in channels that looked almost deliberately arranged, though of course they weren't. A viewpoint where someone, years ago, had built a rough bench from driftwood, and where we sat for an hour watching clouds move across the valley like herds of silent animals.

The locals we met in passing seemed to understand this approach perfectly. An elderly chap out walking his dog near Noresund didn't raise an eyebrow when we explained we'd been aiming for somewhere entirely different. He just pointed out another path we might try, one that wasn't on any map he knew of, and said it went somewhere interesting though he'd forgotten exactly where. This struck me as the most Norwegian thing imaginable.

By the end of the week, I'd stopped checking my phone for directions entirely. We found a small bakery in a village I still couldn't reliably name, where the woman running it spoke about as much English as I do Norwegian, and we managed a perfectly satisfactory conversation involving much pointing and goodwill. She sold us bread that tasted of proper sourdough and something smoky from the wood-fired oven, and we ate it with cheese from a farm we'd stumbled across the day before, after taking a wrong turn that had led us down a track barely wide enough for the car.

I think what I loved most was the gentle permission of it all. Nobody was trying to sell us an experience or optimise our time. The landscape simply existed, and we were allowed to move through it without purpose, to be unproductive in the best possible way. I caught myself one afternoon, sitting by that same little lake where we'd first got properly lost, and realised I was thinking about nothing much at all. It felt like a minor miracle.

We never did make it to several of the places we'd originally planned. The proper ski museum, the marked viewpoint with the information board, whatever that was. I don't feel we missed anything. The cabin stayed warm, the stove became properly mastered by about day four, and I even stopped mispronouncing Norefjell, mostly because I stopped needing to say it to anyone. It was just where we were.

On the last morning, I got up early and walked out in the half-light, deliberately taking a path I didn't recognise, letting myself get lost one final time. I found a small clearing where the birch trees grew so densely their white bark seemed to glow in the dawn, and I stood there feeling something I can only describe as grateful. For the wrong turns, the unmarked paths, the places you find only when you're not looking for them. For a week where getting lost became, finally, the whole point of being there.