Las Vegas - Glamour, Glitz and Gaudy.

When I was strolling through the hotel's casino I was brought up short.  Was it?  Wasn’t it?  No, it couldn’t have been.  I continued my stroll which, of course, brought me back to the figure of a gentleman at a slot machine.  And I still couldn’t make up my mind.

Was it Richard Gere?  Being British I didn’t have the guts to ask.

During my visit I do know that a starlet held her birthday party at Caesar’s Palace so there were many famous faces around.

For Europeans like me Las Vegas takes a bit of getting used to.  The hotels are enormous, the casinos are huge and noisy and the razzamatazz is 24 hours.  It certainly took me a few days to get a handle on the place.

After discovering the delights of the casino-hotel, which is like a mini town with shops, restaurants and fast food outlets, you step out into the blazing sun of The Strip and wonder where to go next.  The hotel to the left?  The hotel to the right or the hotels across the road?  All very puzzling.

For example, I stayed at The Excalibur with the Luxor and Mandalay to one side, New York, New York on the other, the Tropicana and the MGM Grand across the road.  Add to the mix such hotels as the Venetian with its Doge’s Palace, Rialto Bridge, Campanile and Gondoliers or the elegant Bellagio and you can understand the confusion.

One thing is for sure, it takes more than a few days to discover the delights of all of the hotels along The Strip. 

To try to get the ‘feel’ of the Strip I used my feet and the free monorails and covered a fair amount of ground.

A monorail runs between The Mandalay, with its lagoon, rum distillery and a pool with a sandy beach (well, it is in the desert), the Egyptian themed Luxor (entrance from the Monorail station is through the Sphinx) and The Excalibur.  This last comes complete with gaudy towers, a King Arthur, Merlin and the Knights (including Medieval Tournaments and Banquets).  Ironically Sherwood Forest, which is synonymous with Robin Hood and nothing at all to do with King Arthur, is also featured as a café.

Crossing the walkway over Tropicana Avenue I discovered New York, New York.  Mind you, with its Statue of Liberty and replicas of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings it is difficult to miss.  The restaurant area is typical of New York with its delis and bars.

Once through New York, New York it was out into the bright and hot sun to carefully cross the road to the Monte Carlo – looking like Monaco’s Place du Casino.  Inside I took careful note of a Chinese restaurant as a great dinner location for the evening.  Wending my way through the hotel’s marble reception I eventually came to the monorail station.  This one to take me to the elegance of The Bellaggio.

Where to start with this hotel is difficult.  It is one of the few which, if you enter from the Strip, has its entry straight into the Reception area rather than through the casino.  In the lobby is a huge and gorgeous ceiling sculpture by Chihuly in the shapes of flowers and leaves – a veritable garden of exotic blooms.  Passing through Reception you come to the Conservatory, some beautifully laid out gardens that reflect the season.  I was there in autumn and one flowerbed consisted of a display of apples of all types ‘pouring’ down and around from a watermill.  Another flowerbed was a pumpkin patch complete with scarecrows.

The shopping mall, Via Bellagio, is only for the very rich with shops such as Tiffany, Chanel, Gucci and so on.  Outside it overlooks the lake on front of the hotel and looks like an Italian lakeside village.  Some of the time the lake looks calm and smooth but it has a wonderful feature – dancing fountains and music.  Never mind what times I was there, day or night, I missed them every time!

There are times when my resistance is low.  I know the real Venice very well and as I could see Venice’s Campanile (bell tower) I had to walk up to The Venetian.  There in front is the Rialto Bridge, a section of the Grand Canal (complete with gondolas and gondolieri) and backing this, the Doge’s Palace. 

Inside the hotel is another canal running through the shopping mall which itself meanders just like the streets and squares of Venice.

Having talked about the gaudy and the glitzy I bet you are wondering where the glamorous part comes in.  Those fabulous showgirls, of course, in their high, high heels, enormous headdresses, diamantes sparkling, feathers of all colours of the rainbow floating about them – and little else. 

At night Las Vegas is like a vast colourful fairyland with the neon glowing, people in cars parading up and down The Strip, people on foot strolling and, indoors, people gambling, eating in the wide variety of restaurants and seeing the shows.  Everything from famous singers and performers to Cirque du Soleil and virtually anything else you can think of.

This is just a taste of some of the wonders to be discovered in Las Vegas.  I will definitely be returning to explore more of the hotels, which could be never ending as more are being constructed (and others renovated) all the time.