We set off from Visby on a bright morning, the satnav cheerfully promising a quick hop to our Brissund cottage. Naturally we took the first wrong turning and ended up on a gravel track that narrowed to a single wheel rut between pine trees. My partner kept insisting it was a shortcut; I kept insisting we were about to meet a tractor head-on. We did meet a tractor, though its driver simply waved us past with a grin and pointed us back the right way. Ten minutes later we pulled up outside the little red house with its white trim and a garden that sloped straight onto the sea.

The key was waiting under a plant pot, as promised, and the first thing that struck me was the smell of warm wood and salt. Inside it felt more like someone’s spare room than a rental: mismatched mugs, a stack of jigsaw puzzles, and a note from the owners suggesting we try the footpath behind the shed. We dumped our bags and followed it, meaning only to stretch our legs, but the path kept going.

Before long we were on a stretch of shoreline that didn’t appear on any of the tourist maps. Driftwood lay in silvery piles, and a family of eider ducks bobbed just offshore. A little further on, half-hidden by tall grass, we found a circle of flat stones that looked suspiciously like the remains of an old fisherman’s hearth. We sat there with coffee from a flask, watching the water change colour as clouds drifted over.

The funny thing is we had planned to drive straight to one of the better-known beaches, yet here we were, completely alone, listening to nothing but waves and the occasional gull. I kept thinking how easy it is to chase the “must-see” spots and miss the places that simply appear when you take a wrong turn. By the time we wandered back, the sun was low and our shoes were full of sand.

That first evening we grilled sausages on the little terrace and watched the sky turn peach above the treetops. The cottage felt like it had been waiting for us to arrive slightly late and slightly lost. In the morning we spotted a hand-painted sign at the end of the lane pointing to a tiny cove we had never heard of. We decided to ignore the satnav altogether after that.