Sylt in March. We came here after our second son was born, three weeks on the island with two small children and no plan beyond rest.

I had been to Sylt once before, in summer, and even then the water was too cold to swim. In March the question did not come up. We stood on the beach and watched the ocean and that was enough. The dune grass runs unbroken for what feels like kilometres, one low building sitting on the ridge, the North Sea beside it. Almost no one around.

The island is one of the most expensive places in Germany. Houses sell for tens of millions and sit empty most of the year. Westerland, the main town, looks like a run-down real-estate nightmare, the worst combination of West German excess and austerity. The money goes into cars and handbags. Nothing is left for anything worth looking at. Meanwhile the people who actually work on the island cannot afford to live here. If you are up early enough to catch the sunrise, you see them arriving by train.

But the landscape does not know any of this. The grass and the sky and the cold sand could not care less. That was the sanctuary.