The streets are full of water. There really isn't another city like Venice anywhere on earth. Sure, other cities might have canals, but only Venice is actually built on the water. Beneath this city, millions of petrified wooden planks keep it from falling into the Adriatic Sea. Oh, and it's slowly sinking. Perhaps of any city in Europe, Venice has changed the least in the past 1000 years. No roads, no automobiles, no parking lots, shopping malls, suburbs or high rises. Venice today is almost entirely tourist based, so that has changed. It's no longer the gateway to the Orient as it once was, nor a naval power, and not quite the cultural influence it was during the early Renaissance.