If all has gone to plan, by the time you read this, I’ll just have returned from a romantic weekend in Paris with Mrs. W. In itself, that’s not particularly relevant to a technology blog but, whilst booking the hotel for the weekend, I found Google Maps incredibly useful. Not just because the search results were integrated with people’s reviews on Trip Advisor and other such sites but also because Google Maps Street View really came into its own.

If you’re reading this in the US, then you’re probably wondering why the fuss? Well, here in the UK street view is not available (Google’s cameras have started to photograph the country, much to the dismay of privacy campaigners) but for me to have a look at our prospective hotels (albeit on a very grey day) was really useful and provided a real-world view (to compare with the hotel website’s slightly more enticing images).

The map shows a link to street view:

And this is what it looks like:

Previously I’d failed to see any use for this technology. Now I can’t wait for it to come to the UK.