The landscape undulates into the distance like an old blanket, faded by time and breathed by the wind. Between the rounded ridges of the hills stretch strips of meadows, fields and dark forests, which rise to the ridges where the land plunges into silence. Paths, barely noticeable, meander between rosehip bushes and stone walls, as if they lead to long-forgotten stories. In the distance, the shingle roof of the solitude, surrounded by cherries and an old apple tree, shines, under which a broken beggar and the tracks of a deer sleep.

The air here smells of wood, of damp grass and of the fog that slides down the slopes in the morning like the breath of a sleeping giant. Everything is slow, deep and solid, as if time in these places does not flow, but rather remains – bitten into the roots of old lindens and stored in the cracks of the stones. The silence here does not freeze, but embraces. And the wind that wanders here from the mountains whispers about things that most people have long forgotten. Miller Jan lives alone by the water, where the valley twists between the hills and the whisper of the forest merges with the roar of the mill wheel. The old mill stands on the hillside like a forgotten guardian. At night, darkness embraces it, smelling of pine needles and damp earth, during the day it is licked by the sun, which glides over the surface of the river like a golden thread.

Every morning, you wade through the dew on the path that leads through a meadow full of goats and bluebells. A baker from the village, with hands smelling of dough and a heart that has long known the rhythm of this region. You come to get flour – always a little bready, a little smooth – and he is already waiting for you, leaning on the threshold, with fingers dusted with flour and a look that lingers on your face for a long time.

"For cookies," he says quietly one day and hands you a small bag. Inside is a poppy - black, shiny, smelling like old autumns. You smile and the sun catches in the corner of your smile.

And around you the world continues to flow slowly, like water under a flood. The trees whisper their secrets quietly and the landscape, old and faithful, holds your steps in the soft embrace of solitude.