Advertisement
Published: February 15th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Mary and I
Vegas at night - with St Mark's Tower at The Venetian behind us. Las Vegas is truly a one of a kind city. I headed back to the US for a 'flying' 5 day visit over the Thanksgiving Holiday in November. My friend Mary was turning a not to be mentioned major milestone and our group of friends agreed a year or so ago that we would all try and meet up for the major birthdays in the city of the birthday girl's choice. Mary chose Vegas and I was very excited by this as it is a city I had never seen. I was even more excited that it was over a holiday so I only needed to take 1 day leave and found $500 return airfares from Italy. I arrived the night before the other girls but after 20 hrs travel was not really in the mood for exploring and it wasn't until I woke up at 4am unable to sleep further, that I finally got up and about exploring the 'Strip' as the main street in Las Vegas is known. Actually - we never made it off the Strip during our 5 days there and still didn't see many of the attractions!
My first impression of Vegas was not the
massive replica buildings and landmarks or even the number of Pokie (sorry - Slot) machines, it was the smell. Each casino has its own special aroma - piped as I discovered throughout the ventilation systems to mask the smell of cigarettes and give a unique scent to each Hotel. The Flamingo where we stayed had a very distinct sickly sweet coconut smell which reminded me of a cross between coconut ice and a very cheap fake tan lotion. Mandalay Bay which is an Oriental inspired Casino smells of Asian spices and the Venetian has an odour which one commentator aptly described as 'an old man who has been wearing a musk cologne for 40 years and steadily adding more as his tolerance grows.'
My first stroll in Vegas was taken at 5am and I wandered down the deserted strip to the Venetian. All the casinos are open 24hrs a day so it was actually an ideal time to explore and get a birds-eye view of the architectural feats without the hordes of tourists. I found myself wandering along with a stupid grin on my face thinking 'I can't believe they have actually built all these replicas.' Inside the Venetian
are numerous canals and the facades of the shops resemble the traditional Italian architecture. There are even gondolas complete with black and white clad gondoliers to paddle you about on the canals. Caesar's Palace similarly has the ability to make you double check you haven't been transported back to Italy. A replica Trevi Fountain and marble statues everywhere including replicas of many of Michelangelo's works such as David. I'm unsure how he would have felt about David majestically standing next to 780 slot machines though. The other Casino's have similar 'drawcards' - Paris with its Eiffel Tower and 'street' of little French bakeries and crepe shops, New York, New York with its Statue of Liberty Roller Coaster and The Luxor is built entirely inside a Pyramid. Other 'Strip' highlights included the Volcano at the Mirage which 'erupts' on the hour, the Lions at the Mirage and the Flamingos roaming the garden at the Flamingo.
The most impressive sight was undoubtedly the fountains at the Bellagio. In front of the Bellagio hotel is a massive lake which was built to resemble the lakeside resort town of Lake Como in Northern Italy. In the lake is connected a massive network of
water tubes and nozzles which are used to choreograph a water fountain show to music every 15 minutes to half hour. The shows extend the length of one piece of music and the fountains 'dance' and light up in time with the music. On the first night we spent over an hour standing in the cold watching the different shows which truly were amazing and spectacular.
As we spent much of each day wandering in and out of the various casinos sightseeing (I gambled the massive total of 8 dollars whilst I was there..), I found myself contemplating the massive marketing machine behind the Vegas Casinos. Each Casino has its 'unique' attractions to draw you there and once inside it is genuinely difficult to keep track of time and find your way out. There are no exit signs, no natural light and no clocks. The poker machines and tables are not organised in neat rows that allow you to easily navigate, but rather small sections oriented in different directions so that after turning one corner you can no longer see where you came from. The majority of gamblers now use 'Frequent Player Cards' which track how much they bet
and give them points for free rooms at the Casino or free meals at the Casino Restaurants. The free drinks come regularly if you are gambling and some of the Casinos now have some scantily clad ladies gratuitously dancing on a table in the midst of the machines. The rooms at the hotels are also extremely cheaply priced based on the premise that if you are staying there, you are more likely to gamble on the way in and out and the majority have major shopping malls attached on the same premise.
We had a wonderful 5 days and I am certainly interested in the idea of going back to Vegas one day - it was impossible to see all the attractions in such a short time, and I am sure in a year or two there will be many new ones.
A truly unique idea for a city - even if they have stolen all their 'landmarks' from the rest of the world!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Mary
non-member comment
Woohoo!!
Let's do it again!! Yay! I'm so glad you could make it for the unmentionable birthday :)