Venezia!!!

[Cornelia]

For a long time I wanted to take Joy to Venice to have fun with the pigeons on Piazza San Marco - so finally, we managed - just follow the direction of her smiling face and then look upwards from the two shadows: 

But our Joy does not only 'laugh' a lot herself, she is also in the habit of bringing a smile on the face of perfect strangers. She would make a wonderful pat-dog. Just look at the expression on the lady's face! - Sorry, that I started to fix the halti, but the boat was just about to leave:

From the vaporetto, the boats that tour the larger canals of Venice, I could quietly take some photos of some of the houses:

Here's Joy on the boat - in Italy dogs, as tall as Joy have to wear a muzzle on boats or ferries; I brought one with but managed well with the halti so far, relying on the fact that most people cannot tell the difference:

Arriving by boat is always special! Here you can see the Palazzo Ducale and the Campanile di San Marco:

"Hello, tall one - are you Venetian?":

Some of the many 'gondola':

"Mmhhh - shall we have fish and crab for lunch?":

Joy did not mind the many tourists - she had only eyes for the pigeons - again follow her gaze diagonally upwards:

She even had a hard time follow my 'sit' as there were more pigeons in front and would not care for the beautiful architecture:

And...

ACTION!:

Well - we took her to a more quiet 'piazza' to chill out and went on to visit some friends:

I hope you enjoyed our short stay as well as we did. As we both had to work on Joy's fourth birthday, we thought this would make up for a belated B'day fun - or as a Setter owner, who'd prefer to stay anonymous, once said: "Our dog is not spoiled, she just sometimes does not know she is a dog."

 

[silvia]

http://www.nardi-venezia.com/en/index.php?lingua=1

yup, of course nardi is still there, with their famous "moretto" brouches and much more:)) 

(I though the nardi's family was originally from Florence, but of course you know much more;)

[Nardi Rowe]

I am not sure Silvia.  I've been told we are supposed to be descendents of a family member of Michangelo who I think comes from Florence so perhaps you are quite correct about Florence.  I have recently joined Ancestry.com to start my own research on our family for my young daughter so hopefully in time can verify verbal family 'history' that has been handed down in this way for the last 50 years.  Thank you for the link for the "Nardi" jewellery store.  It was very interesting and I am pleased it is so well respected.

[Cornelia]

Hi Silvia, Thanks for the info about the Campo - the quiet one is called Campo de la Maddalena in the Cannaregio area. You can see only the shade of the church to my left.

[silvia]

ahh ok! so I was wrong:)

I love the "and.. ACTION" sequence : it made me laughing the all morning thinking about how Joy messed up the pigeons:)

[Myra Thomas-Rhodes]

Another wonderful blog, Cornelia and  I have enjoyed reading all the comments with a bit of history, and Nardi's connections - fascinating. Joy is such a lucky girl to live in your family. XX

[john murphy]

fab