ABOVE: The Alloggi Barbaria Blog's home page on July 5, 2013.

Fausto, who runs the reservations office at a small two-star hotel in Venice called the Alloggi Barbaria, has been publishing the Alloggi Barbaria Blog about Venice at alloggibarbaria.blogspot.com since 2008. Recently, after nearly five years, his blog statistics showed that his total traffic had reached 1,000,000 visitors--an excellent showing for a specialized destination blog.

According to a recent post, Fausto is wondering whether to continue or close his blog. We hope he'll keep it going, even if he cuts back on the number of new posts due to time constraints and the pressures of his job. The Alloggi Barbaria Blog covers hundreds of topics, is illustrated with the author's own photos, and offers a pleasant reading experience for anyone who's visited Venice and wants to keep up with local news, Venetian daily life, and things to see.

To read Fausto's blog, click here. (The blog is in Italian, but you can read a machine-translated version by clicking a flag for the language of your choice.)

If you're interested in staying at the Alloggi Barbaria, visit the hotel's Web site or check the rates and reviews at our two booking partners: Venere: Alloggi Barbaria and Booking.com: Alloggi Barbaria.

ABOVE: Leopold, the Hendersons' Corgi, pines while Karen and Mike of The Venice Experience get up close and personal with Johnny Depp.

In previous Venice movie and celebrity posts, we've chronicled the exploits of Cheryl and Maggie, our celebrity-sniffing service dog, who kept an eye (and, in Cheryl's case, a lens) on the paparazzi who stalked Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie during the shooting of a movie, The Tourist, in Venice over the last few months.

To the great chagrin of our in-house paparazza and her pooch, they--and our Venice Travel Blog--were upstaged recently by private-tour guides Karen and Mike Henderson of The Venice Experience, who were lucky enough to get within 20 feet (about six meters) of Johnny Depp during last-minute retakes of scenes from The Tourist in the Piazza San Marco.

You can read Karen's account and see Mike's photos in Karen's blog post, "Johnny Depp in Venice."

We've just launched our "Maggie in Venice" dog blog, which is subtitled "A Bearded Collie's Adventures in Italy." 

Maggie will arrive in Venice on January 30 for a three-month stay, and we'll be publishing regular updates with photos and videos--including a "Where's Maggie?" segment for Venetophiles who'd like to test their knowledge and memories of Venetian landmarks.

You'll find our Maggie in Venice dog blog at maggieinvenice.com.