I have never been so relieved to see a kitchen in all my life, and that includes the time I got lost in IKEA for three hours.

The drive down from Treviso Airport had been straightforward enough, or so I thought. My hire car came with a sat nav that clearly fancied itself as some sort of avant-garde artist, directing me through a series of increasingly narrow lanes that I am fairly certain were intended for bicycles and the occasional brave chicken. By the time I reached Chioggia, I was forty minutes late, slightly sweaty, and in possession of a wing mirror that had developed an intimate relationship with a hedge. The mishap came when I finally found the property, leapt out to grab my bags with theatrical relief, and promptly dropped my entire supply of olive oil onto the gravel drive. It shattered magnificently. The smell was extraordinary. I stood there in the late afternoon sun, watching golden liquid pool around my sandals, and wondered if this was some sort of omen about my self-catering ambitions.

The chap who handed over the keys was very kind about the whole thing, though I suspect he has seen worse. He gestured towards the kitchen with what I can only describe as optimistic encouragement.

That kitchen saved my holiday, and possibly my sanity.

Chioggia sits on the southern end of the Venetian Lagoon, a working fishing port where the boats come in with the sort of catch that makes you embarrassed about supermarket fish counters back home. The property put me within easy reach of the daily market along Corso del Popolo, a street so generously supplied with food stalls that you begin to understand why Italians look faintly pitying when you mention ready meals. I went there every morning without exception, usually before eight, usually with a coffee from the bar on the corner that the same four men had been drinking at since approximately 1973.

The fish stalls were my undoing. I would approach with confidence, armed with a handful of phrases from a phrasebook, and emerge with squid I had not intended to buy, prawns that were still twitching, and on one memorable occasion a whole sea bass that required what I can only describe as a philosophical conversation with the fishmonger about preparation. He took pity on me. I think the olive oil incident had somehow travelled through local gossip networks.

Back at the property, I cooked with determination if not always with success. The first evening's attempt at risotto involved three phone calls to my mother, a YouTube tutorial that buffered at the critical moment, and a pan that I will never fully clean. It tasted, if I am generous, educational. By the third night I had improved sufficiently to produce a seafood pasta that did not prompt immediate thoughts of apology. The kitchen had decent knives, a hob that behaved predictably, and enough counter space to accommodate my increasingly elaborate attempts at branzino al sale, which I had seen demonstrated with apparent simplicity by a man in the market.

The local vegetables deserve their own paragraph. Tomatoes that actually taste of something. Courgettes so small and tender you feel guilty cutting them. Aubergines with skin so glossy you could check your reflection. I made caponata one afternoon, following instructions from the woman who sold me the aubergines, who spoke exclusively in dialect and hand gestures. It took forty minutes to understand that I needed celery, not cinnamon, though in my defence her gestures were ambiguous and I was still traumatised by the olive oil.

Evening meals became a ritual. I would cook slowly, drink the local Soave, and eat on the small terrace as the light went soft over the lagoon. The boats came back in. The seagulls made their opinions known. Somewhere distant, a church bell marked time that seemed less urgent than at home.

I did eat out twice, at a trattoria near the canal where the menu changed according to what had been caught that morning, and at a cicchetti bar where standing at the counter with a spritz and something fried felt like the most sophisticated thing I had ever done. Both were excellent. Neither taught me as much as my own failures.

On my final morning I returned to the market and bought more than I could carry, including another bottle of olive oil, which I guarded with both arms all the way back to the car. The drive to the airport was uneventful. The sat nav behaved. My wing mirror hung on with quiet dignity.

I left Chioggia with a slightly expanded waistline, a notebook full of half-legible recipes, and the certain knowledge that I would never again take a functioning kitchen for granted.