I have never been so relieved to see a gravel driveway in all my life. Three hours of driving from Gothenburg, two wrong turns near Munkedal, and one spectacular argument with a sat nav that seemed convinced I wanted to visit a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, and there it was: our little red holiday cottage at Tanumshede, tucked among the pines like something from a postcard.

The mishap, though. I must tell you about the mishap. Somewhere around Hamburgsund I had convinced myself I was a proper Swedish local now, windows down, singing along to ABBA with misplaced confidence. So when I spotted what I thought was a shortcut on a sandy track, I took it. The track turned out to be a boat launch. The boat launch turned out to be soft. And our hire car, a sensible Volvo that had done nothing to deserve this, sank to its axles in sand while a man in waders watched from his trailer with the kind of expression that suggested this was not his first tourist rescue. Forty minutes, much Swedish politeness, and one slightly hysterical phone call later, we were towed out by a farmer whose teenage son found the whole thing deeply amusing. I laughed along, obviously. Inside I was dying.

By the time we actually reached the cottage, I was ready to never drive again. But stepping out onto the wooden deck, smelling that particular mix of pine resin and salt air that seems unique to this stretch of Bohuslan coast, something shifted. The place was simple, unpretentious, the sort of holiday home where you can tell people actually live in summer rather than just pose for photographs. A proper kitchen, a little terrace with a barbecue that looked like it had seen some action, and windows that framed the greenery like deliberate paintings.

We had planned, of course. We are planners, my partner and I. Spreadsheet people. The weather app had promised a solid week of twenty-degree sunshine, perfect for the coastal hikes we had researched obsessively: the trail from Grebbestad through the granite archipelago, the longer loop around Fjallbacka, perhaps even the path to Vitlycke to see the Bronze Age rock carvings up close rather than from a car park.

The weather, naturally, had other ideas.

That first morning we woke to grey skies and a wind that rattled the pine cones against the roof like enthusiastic percussionists. By afternoon the temperature had dropped to something that felt deeply personal, an affront. We stood in waterproofs at the start of the Sannas trail, watching whitecaps churn in the bay, and admitted defeat. This was not warm-weather adventure weather. This was weather for hot chocolate and tactical retreat.

But here is the thing about walking the Bohuslan coast: it does not much care for your plans, yet it rewards flexibility. The following day brought sudden, almost apologetic sunshine, and we set off early for the granite paths near Grebbestad, threading between weathered rock and juniper bushes, the sea flashing silver through gaps in the terrain. The walking was harder than expected, proper scrambling in places, my city legs complaining loudly. But reaching a viewpoint where the archipelago scattered itself below us like broken pottery, the previous day's frustration melted into something like gratitude. Without that false start, without the enforced patience, would this have felt so earned?

The week continued in this fashion. Warm mornings lured us out, sudden squalls sent us scurrying back, and we learned to read the sky with the anxious attention of amateur meteorologists. We walked when we could, explored the immediate coastline around Tanumshede itself when we could not, and slowly stopped fighting the rhythm. One evening, caught in unexpected sunshine at eight o'clock, we found ourselves swimming in a cove we would never have discovered had our original plans held firm. The water was freezing, obviously. I emerged making sounds I did not know I could produce. But I was grinning like an idiot.

I think about that sat nav argument now with something like affection. The wrong turns, the sand trap, the weather that refused to cooperate: they became the story, not the obstacle to it. The cottage at Tanumshede was our base for all of it, unglamorous and perfect, a place to dry wet socks and plan imperfect walks and eat too much cheese while watching the rain come in across the pines. Some holidays you plan. Others you survive, then realise you loved.