Check it out! It's absolutely breathtaking. Does anyone know how this was taken? And are there any other cities that are like this?
Looks like it might've been done aerially (i.e. by plane/helicopter). Bing maps also has aerial photos of Venice, albeit not as good IMHO.
It seems Florence (and probably other cities as well, I haven't searched), have been done this way as well. When you switch directions on the compass, you get a whole new (angled) picture, not just a rotation of the same picture.
Try Google Earth and also specifically try Bing Earth as I remember being able to manipulate the 3d view to get stunning visuals (outside of Venice as well). In fact if it's for visuals of the cities themselves (as opposed to mapping), I'd say Bing maps's birds-eye view (in the browser) it much better than Google Maps (Bing Maps also has aerial view which is similar to Google's satellite view).