It's more sensible than it looks. It covers over the scaffolding for the cleaning and maintenance that's going on underneath those ads. Venice has been doing picture and advertising scaffolding more and more in the past few years - the alternative is looking at bare scaffolding after all. Some of the results have been tasteful; many have been bizarre.

The "sky" around the Bridge of Sighs is, at least, hilariously surreal. We couldn't stop laughing as we went under it. I wasn't quite as taken by the series of towers whose images graced the Clock Tower in St. Mark's Square while it was under renovation - including the Big Ben Clock Tower. (Not what one normally goes to Venice to see.)