It entailed
months of tramping over dozens of stone bridges,
squeezing down narrow passageways and navigating
canals by gondola, but the magic of Venice has
finally been captured by Google Street View.
The unique nature of the lagoon city precluded the use of cameras fitted to cars or even Google's distinctive three-wheeled bicycles, so its piazzas, palaces and churches were photographed by employees with tall Trekker cameras strapped to their backs.
The results went online this week, enabling people around the world to explore the UNESCO-listed city with the click of a mouse.
"It was impossible for us to collect images of Venice with a Street View car or trike blame the picturesque canals and narrow cobbled walkways but our team of backpackers took to the streets to give Google Maps a truly Shakespearean backdrop," Google said.
Not just the the streets we also loaded the Trekker onto a boat and floated by the famous gondolas to give you the best experience of Venice short of being there." Google employees walked 265 miles and travelled 114 miles by boat to capture 360 degree, panoramic photographs of the city of Marco Polo.
In addition to photographing sights such as St Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge, Street View captured some of the lesser known but no less intriguing parts of the city, such as a synagogue in the first Jewish Ghetto, the "Devil's Bridge" on the island of Torcello and a mask to scare the Devil away from the church of Santa Maria Formosa.
"Unfortunately, Street View can't serve you a cicchetto (local appetiser) in a classic bacaro (a typical Venetian bar), though we can show you how to get there," Google said as it launched the feature.
The Trekker cameras, which each weigh 33lb and are powered by a lithium battery, attracted a lot of attention in Venice, with tourists stopping to take photographs of the device – even as it captured images of them.
The backpack camera was developed to film places around the world that are accessible only on foot, such as the Grand Canyon and the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, Google Street View has since expanded to dozens of countries.