‘Venice, quite simply, cured me of my grief ’

After losing her father, Julie Cook went to Italy – and found solace in La Serenissima

As the plane veered to the right, I could suddenly see the city laid out below me through my tiny window. I’d been before twice, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it still it took my breath away. Venice. A city trapped in time emerging from the sea like some fairyland.

Only this time, unlike other visits, I didn’t feel that jolt of happiness and excitement. I had a pain in my stomach that hadn’t gone for weeks. It was the pain of grief. My father had died a few weeks earlier. It had been a cruel form of cancer of the head and neck. First the illness had ravaged him and made him unable to eat. Then it had invaded the bones in his face and neck. He was only 59. I was 27. On the plane around me, romantic couples were kissing as we landed. I felt very much alone.

After checking into a hotel in the city centre, I decided I needed to walk. Venice is made up of 118 tiny islands joined together by 400 bridges. With no particular destination in mind, I wandered down tiny streets and often got lost, ending up at dead ends that stopped at the edge of canals with the water slip-slapping against the stone. Then I would turn left or right and, before I knew it, would end up in the middle of a bustling street again.

I realised that walking in Venice was a little like trying to get over grief. You think you’ve reached your destination and then suddenly you haven’t at all, and you’re lost again. And as I walked, I reflected on my loss. I hadn’t yet had children. My father would never experience being a grandfather. I found myself pushing open the creaking doors of churches and stepping from the blazing sunlight into some dark, dusty interior, and then staring upwards at great masters’ paintings – Bellini and Titian.

I took a vaporetto – the boats that ferry residents and tourists alike from stop to stop – from the centre and went to Torcello, the island where Venice all began. This was where the first people who would create Venice took shelter. After a city of stone and very little greenery, Torcello is a more natural haven – with grass lining the canals, and little houses with gardens where dogs bark as the tourists trail by.

I visited the church of Santa Maria Assunta, founded originally in 639. It is one of the oldest churches in Venice. Inside, the paintings are so ancient that they look Orthodox Christian rather than Catholic. I marvelled at its age and simple beauty and realised, all at once: people live, people die, but this church is still standing.

Back in Venice that night, I dined alone – a difficult thing to do as a woman in normal circumstances, let alone in the most romantic city on earth. At nearby tables, couples glanced at me, one woman tried to make conversation to be kind. Somehow, the stares didn’t matter, though. As the verdicchio worked its magic, I was able to find the situation vaguely amusing, as my father would no doubt have done.

But as I wandered back to my hotel, through a winding street that led me back to that most beautiful of squares, Piazza San Marco, the sadness stabbed at me again. My father had never visited Venice. He had always wanted to go.

I watched the band play at Caffè Florian, flitting between jazzy numbers, film soundtracks and waltzes. I watched a father buy his little girl – up way past her bedtime – a toy that you threw up into the air and it came whizzing down. I felt tears come then at last, tears I had kept back since my father’s death.

I had booked five days in Venice and in the coming days I walked so much that one heel on my shoes wore down. I visited art galleries, churches. I ate food I would never have dreamed of trying at home – seppie nere (spaghetti in squid’s ink) and all manner of seafood I couldn’t name.

Then, on the second-to-last day, I visited the Santa Maria della Salute church – the famous domed one that you see on all the postcards, which sits on the edge of the Grand Canal in the district of Dorsoduro. I’m not a Catholic, but I went inside and gave a donation and lit a candle for my dad. I sat there a while, watching it flicker and burn. I gazed upwards at the majestic dome and each wall lined with huge Renaissance paintings. Then I turned and walked outside.

At the top of the church steps, I saw the Grand Canal before me. It was a beautiful, fiercely sunny day. The sunlight danced on the water. I saw some students sitting on the steps of the church, carefree and giggling. I did the same. I got out my mobile phone and opened my messages. I had kept my dad’s texts and had reread them daily. Once I even wrote one and sent it, knowing full well it was madness.

I read them again, then again, then I looked at the twinkling water that changed from blue to green to turquoise, even to black, as the sun danced on it. And suddenly I smiled.

I felt ready to do something. It was drastic, but I knew I had to. One by one, I deleted the texts from my dad.

You think you’ve reached your destination and then suddenly you haven’t and you’re lost

I watched them vanish on my phone. I looked out at the canal and whispered: “Goodbye, Dad.”

What happened next was like something out of a film. I came back to Venice on a weekend break a few weeks later, met a pianist from Caffè Florian and fell for him. I only saw him four more times before I quit my job as a deputy editor on a magazine back in Britain, sold my three-bedroom house and moved to Venice, the city that had helped me grieve. I set up home with that pianist, Cornel, in a tiny studio flat overlooking a canal. We married and lived in Venice for seven years.

We are now back in the South of England with our children, Alex and Adriana, but we visit Venice every year to see friends and reminisce. And I always remember how that city – with its crumbling buildings, high, unpredictable waters, overpriced restaurants, bustling streets, Renaissance treasures – saved me. It helped me get over my father’s death. It taught me about the transience of life. It taught me to appreciate beauty and love and to seize the day. Venice, quite simply, cured me of my grief.

Our expert guide to Venice is at telegraph.co.uk/venice. Overseas holidays are currently subject to restrictions. See page 3.

gKey location: Julie Cook met a pianist from Caffè Florian, left, and later married him h The churches of Santa Maria della Salute, right, and Santa Maria Assunta, far right

iJulie Cook, aged about three, with her father, who died of cancer at the age of 59