There’s something unique about Venice – it has a lot of water in and around it, which means that it is impossible for a car to get anywhere near it. So you would think that this would prevent Google Street-View from getting anywhere near it, right? Well wrong. If Venice thought they were safe from Google by virtue of water, they were badly mistaken, because Google found a unique way around the situation – with their Trekker technology.
From the looks of things, the Trekker technology consists of a round green camera which is mounted on a person’s back and the person walks around, while the camera captures everything. But not only walking – in the case of Venice, you can also take a gondola. Tough work, but somebody has to do it I guess.
So this has led to the city being assimilated into the Google collective, so if you have ever wanted to visit Venice, but don’t have the money and means to do so, then this is the next best thing. But where are the famous pigeons that regularly flock this square? Did Google scare them off?
One really cool feature is that if you click on a pin under “Take a Tour“, you can compare the modern streets with paintings of the same spots by artists such as Carpaccio and Cesare Vecellio. It really gives you a sense of how Venice has changed (or in some cases, not changed) over the centuries.
If you really want to dig deeper, you can also look at historical maps of Venice.
Take a look at what Google has done, and let us know in the comments what you think of it.
Source: Google Lat Long