I have never been brilliant with directions, and my trip to Zakopane-Koscielisko proved it in spectacular fashion. After a seven-hour slog from Krakow Airport, weaving through increasingly dramatic Polish countryside, I finally reached the Tatra Mountains with their jagged peaks poking through low cloud like broken teeth. The sat nav cheerfully announced I had arrived. I had not. I was staring at a very closed, very locked gate belonging to what I can only describe as an enthusiastic goat farm. The goats seemed delighted to see me. I was less delighted to see them, particularly as one began chewing my windscreen wiper with what I can only call professional determination.

Twenty minutes of increasingly frantic reversing down a narrow lane later, I found the actual property. The real Zakopane-Koscielisko sat there, all traditional wooden architecture and steep pitched roof, looking exactly like the photographs except somehow more solid and welcoming. I tumbled out of the car with the slightly manic energy of someone who has spent too long in a Vauxhall Corsa and has recently been outwitted by livestock.

The first thing that struck me was the quiet. Not the oppressive, heavy quiet of isolation, but the alive, breathing silence of a place properly removed from everyday nonsense. You could hear the wind moving through the pine trees on the slope behind the house. Somewhere distant, a stream was doing its watery business over stones. My ears, accustomed to the constant low-grade roar of London, took a moment to adjust. They kept straining for traffic or aircraft or someone shouting about a delivery. Nothing came. It was disconcerting and wonderful in equal measure.

I fumbled with the key box, dropping the code printout twice because my fingers had apparently forgotten how fingers work. The door opened with that particular solid wooden weight you only get in proper mountain buildings, not the hollow flimsiness of modern construction. Inside, the smell hit me immediately: wood, yes, but also something else, something clean and slightly sharp that I eventually realised was simply mountain air that had been sitting undisturbed in a well-made room. I stood in the hallway like an idiot, breathing deliberately, as if I could store it up for later.

The living area opened out with those lovely high ceilings and exposed beams that make you feel simultaneously cosy and slightly important, as though you have accidentally qualified for a lifestyle slightly above your usual station. I am not someone who normally notices interior details, but the way the light came through the windows, throwing warm rectangles across the wooden floor, made me stop and actually look. The furniture managed that difficult trick of being substantial and comfortable without cluttering the space. I immediately pictured myself in the armchair with a book I would probably never finish, feeling smug about the whole situation.

I dumped my bags with the casual abandon of someone who has finally, definitively stopped moving for the day, and made straight for the kitchen to put the kettle on. This is my universal response to any new environment: assess tea-making facilities before anything else. The kitchen was properly equipped, not the usual holiday-home collection of blunt knives and one saucepan with a wobbly handle. I found actual decent mugs. This mattered more than it probably should.

With tea in hand, I stepped onto the terrace, and there it was properly: the view. The Tatra range rising directly ahead, close enough that you felt you could almost throw a stone and hit a slope, though obviously you could not and should not. The late afternoon light was doing that golden thing it does in mountains, picking out ridges and valleys in sharp relief, making everything look slightly unreal, like a very convincing painting. I stood there with my tea going cold, aware that I was doing the classic holiday-maker thing of just staring, and completely unable to stop myself.

A bird of some sort, probably something impressive that I could not identify, drifted across the middle distance. I watched it until it disappeared behind a spur of rock. My shoulders, which had been somewhere up near my ears since approximately Heathrow, dropped to their proper positions for the first time in weeks. I became aware that I was smiling at nothing in particular, the slightly foolish smile of someone who has accidentally stumbled into exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

The goat incident already felt like it had happened to someone else, a necessary narrative detour to make the arrival properly earned. I finished my cold tea, resolved to unpack eventually, and simply stood there as the light shifted and the mountains changed colour, feeling very small and very lucky and very ready to do absolutely nothing in particular for as long as possible.