One of the greatest advantages of being a Local Guide is having informed (via forums such as this) access to the whole stable of Google Tools so the act of GUIDING does not need to be limited to putting a new burger joint onto Google Maps, and in my view this is very pertinent to this lockdown period where we can both amuse and educate ourselves using such as the 500 million Street View panos AND creating Virtual Tours to guide OTHERS - or at least that is my own solution to this Covid thing.
So today I am visiting Venice, or in fact revisiting from 50 years ago when I first went there and here is my Virtual Venice Multi-App
https://www.slowweb.tours/venice/
The really groovy thing is that because GoogleEarth has 3D Buildings for Venice, creating a flyover video is far more dramatic particularly as it curves around the corner of the Rialto Bridge, but here’s the groovy part - 3D buildings don’t include people so we zoom down the Grand Canal on imagery that dates back to 2018 but the result is probably very close to what a crow with a GoPro around its neck would see TODAY eg Piazza San Marco totally empty - clever huh?
But here’s the catch. You can’t wait to see the 2,000 year old Roman (or Greek?) bronze horses at the end of the Flyover but BINGO, 3D Buildings don’t draw horses either. So this looks like it would have 200 years ago when Napoleon took the horses.
Anyway you simply select Pano Thumb 11 and there are the 4 (fake) horses but there also are hundreds of people. The real horses (which you can view upstairs in the museum) where substituted in 1980, meaning that the ones I saw in 1970 WERE the real bronze ones.
And the Sat Nav I created in this case is not for the normal car trip but Google fully documents the Ferry Trip down the Grand Canal and you can read more under “Notes”.
I was going to add the good old “Oh Solo Mio” music to the Flyover but it seemed a bit over the top, especially in these times!
But please take a Virtual Venice Trip yourself - all for free - and you just might get hooked for the real thing a bit down the track.
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