I have never been particularly good with sat navs, and my journey to Nowe Warpno proved this beyond all doubt. Somewhere around the outskirts of Szczecin, mine decided that the most sensible route to our holiday cottage involved a dirt track through what I can only describe as a cabbage field of aggressive proportions. My partner, Beth, sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression she reserves for my technological mishaps, arms folded, watching a tractor amble past with what felt like smug judgment. Three turnarounds and one heated discussion about whether I had, in fact, typed the postcode correctly later, we finally spotted the sign for Nowe Warpno and the glimmer of Szczecin Lagoon beyond.

The cottage itself, when we finally arrived, was one of those proper Scandinavian-style wooden numbers that the Poles do so well in this part of Pomerania. Red cladding, neat little terrace, and a garden that smelled of pine and something herby I could not identify. Beth forgave me instantly, or at least she did once she saw the hammock. I, meanwhile, was already planning the coastal walks that had drawn me to this corner of northwest Poland in the first place. The weather app had promised twenty-three degrees and uninterrupted sunshine for our entire stay. I should have known better than to trust it.

We unpacked with the haste of people who have been in a car too long, threw on our walking boots, and set off for what the local map called the coastal path towards the lagoon shore. The first twenty minutes were absolutely glorious. Warm air, butterflies doing their chaotic dance across the meadows, and the sort of light that makes amateur photographers believe they might actually have talent. I took seventeen photographs of the same reed bed, convinced each was a masterpiece.

Then the weather turned. Not gradually, not politely, but with the sudden theatricality that only Baltic coastal regions can manage. One moment we were admiring the view across the lagoon towards the German coast; the next, a wind arrived from absolutely nowhere that felt like it had personal grievances. The temperature dropped what felt like ten degrees in as many minutes. Beth, who had insisted on bringing her light cardigan "just in case," gave me a look of tremendous vindication while I stood there in my t-shirt, suddenly very aware of my life choices.

We sheltered under a small stand of pine trees as the first fat drops arrived, then made the executive decision to turn back rather than push on towards the village pier as planned. The walk back was considerably less scenic, mostly because I spent it trying to remember whether I had left any windows open at the cottage. Spoiler: I had not, which remains one of my greatest achievements as a functioning adult.

The following morning brought proper warmth again, and with it a revised plan. We would do shorter, more flexible walks, sticking closer to the village and its immediate surroundings rather than committing to longer coastal routes that might leave us exposed. This proved genuinely lovely. Nowe Warpno itself is a quiet place, the sort where you can wander along lanes lined with fruit trees and occasional glimpses of the water, passing houses with neat gardens and the odd fishing boat pulled up on the grassy bank.

We found a route that looped from the cottage down to the lagoon shore near the village centre, then back through meadows where people were cutting hay in the old-fashioned manner. The second day, we walked eastwards along a track that followed the coastline more closely, through wetlands alive with birdsong, until we reached a small beach area where locals were swimming and we promptly joined them. The water was bracing, to put it generously, but the sun was properly warm by then and the sensation of floating in the lagoon with that wide Polish sky above was worth every initial gasp.

The weather continued its capricious performance throughout our stay. Warm mornings that suggested endless possibility, occasional afternoon breezes that demanded a jumper, one spectacular evening when the light turned golden and we walked to the pier to watch it fade across the water. I stopped checking the forecast entirely and simply packed layers each morning like a sensible person, which Beth noted with barely concealed amazement.

By our final day, I had developed a genuine affection for this particular Polish coast and its refusal to behave predictably. The walks had not been the grand adventures I had imagined, but something better perhaps, more responsive to what was actually there rather than what I had planned. We did one last loop, a favourite by then, through the pines and down to the shore where the reeds whispered in whatever wind happened to be passing through. I thought about my sat nav failure, the cabbage field, the sudden weather changes, and how none of it had mattered in the way I expected. Some holidays give you exactly what you need by refusing to give you what you wanted.