I have never been so pleased to see a bus stop in my life. After a three-hour train journey from Copenhagen, followed by a tram ride that I am fairly certain took me in a complete circle, I found myself standing in the wrong bit of Gothenburg with a suitcase wheel that had developed a troubling wobble. My phone insisted I was still seventeen minutes from the holiday home. In Utby. Which, according to the map, was up there. On a hill. Of course it was.

The mishap came five minutes later, when I attempted what I can only describe as "urban hiking" up a residential street that turned out to be somebody's private drive. A very polite man watering his tomatoes explained this to me in perfect English, which somehow made it worse. I had managed to get lost in a suburb that covers approximately four square kilometres. There is a special kind of humbling in realising you have been out-navigated by a man holding a watering can.

The property itself, when I finally arrived, was worth every wrong turn. A traditional Swedish wooden house tucked among birch trees, with that particular stillness you only get when you have accidentally climbed a hill and the city falls away behind you. I dumped my bag, opened the windows, and sat on the little wooden deck with a cup of tea that tasted like absolute victory.

My plan had been ambitious. I had researched coastal walks. The Gothenburg archipelago was calling. Donsoe, Styrsoe, Vrangoe - islands connected by ferries, paths winding along granite shores, the whole Nordic summer fantasy. I had packed accordingly. Proper walking boots. A hat with a proper brim. That slightly embarrassing enthusiasm of someone who has read too many guidebooks.

The weather, naturally, had other ideas.

The first morning brought grey skies and a wind that felt personally directed at me. I set out anyway, because I am stubborn and had brought the boots. The path from Utby down towards the Kallered area follows old forest tracks, pine needles soft underfoot, the occasional glimpse of lake through the trees. It is perfectly pleasant walking. It is not, however, the dramatic coastal scenery I had imagined. I walked for two hours, got slightly damp, saw three very confident squirrels, and returned to make soup.

By afternoon the clouds had thickened properly. I studied the ferry timetable with the intensity of a general planning a campaign. The archipelago would have to wait.

What I discovered instead was the particular pleasure of adjusting. The following days became a negotiation with the weather rather than a battle against it. Mornings I walked locally - the trails around Utby itself, the paths threading through woodland, the route down to the Moelndalsan river where the water moves quick and cold over stones. When the sun broke through, which it did with maddening unpredictability, I would dash to the tram and head for the nearest coastal access I could reach.

Saltholmen became my compromise. Not the islands, but the mainland harbour, the rocky outcrops where locals swim and sunbathe with a confidence I found both impressive and slightly worrying. I walked the shoreline path towards Fiskebaeck, scrambling over granite slabs, the Baltic stretching grey-green to the horizon. The wind remained enthusiastic. I kept the hat on with sheer determination.

There was a particular afternoon, the warmest of my stay, when I found a sheltered cove and actually managed to sit without my jacket. Twenty-three degrees, which in Swedish summer terms apparently counts as a heatwave. A woman nearby was swimming. I considered it. I considered it for a solid ten minutes. Then I put my toes in and made a sound I am glad nobody recorded.

The weather turned again that evening, rain against the windows of the wooden house, me inside with a borrowed detective novel and the satisfaction of having walked enough to deserve the stillness.

I never did make it to the outer archipelago. The ferries and my plans kept missing each other, the weather holding just long enough to promise then withdraw. What I got instead was something better, though it took me most of the week to admit it. The local paths, the improvised routes, the walks that started from the front door rather than a ferry timetable. The understanding that a warm-weather adventure in West Sweden sometimes means recognising the warmth when it comes, however briefly, and walking in it while you can.

On my last morning, the sun proper and blazing, I walked up the hill behind the house one final time. The view opens unexpectedly - Gothenburg spread below, the harbour glinting, the distant suggestion of islands I never reached. I stood there with my ridiculous hat, my slightly broken suitcase already packed, and laughed at myself. All that planning, all that navigation, and the best walk had been the one I stumbled into literally by getting lost on arrival.

Some holidays teach you to let go of the itinerary. This one taught me with Scandinavian efficiency, one changeable day at a time.