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Published: February 17th 2019
Bellagio Conservatory
Chinese New Year displayWe had one full day to check out the sights and sounds of Vegas. We slept in (for us) after our late night and left our hotel around 9AM to do some walking. And boy did we walk! When you look at a map, it looks like each casino is right next to it's neighbor, and that is true, except each casino is roughly the size of a city block. The nice thing is that the strip is very accessible for pedestrians. There is a wide sidewalk on either side of Las Vegas Blvd with multiple pedestrian bridges to get from one side to the other. And you can reach the bridges by stair, escalator or elevator.
Our plan was to head north on the strip as all the places we wanted to see were in that direction. We crossed over towards Planet Hollywood and began our trek. First was a stop outside Paris to get a good look at the Bellagio. We crossed back over and headed inside to check out the Conservatory and Botanical Garden. We entered through a mall filled with fancy stores that we could never shop in, walked through the casino and finally found the
Bellagio Conservatory
Chinese New Year display. The giant pig was fuzzy! Conservatory. This is a really cool spot inside a very cool hotel. The Conservatory is free and the theme changes each season. We were lucky enough to be there for a special display for Chinese New Year. The 14,000 square foot room was full of colorful flowers, lots of different replicas of Chinese symbols, moving dragons and pigs, koi and soothing Chinese music. I'm glad we got there early so we could enjoy before it became too crowded. If you want to learn more about the Conservatory, you can check out the Bellagio website.
We had to do some gambling while in Vegas and each brought $20 to play with. Renee tried her luck at a Lord of the Rings themed slot machine but nothing came out. I tried a Go Fish slot machine, put $5 in and $213 came out! Very exciting, but we also couldn't figure out how people could sit at these machines for hours just pushing buttons. This was not for us so we headed on our way.
Caesar's Palace was the next stop on our tour. This place was huge! I couldn't figure out how to fit it all in one picture. We
Bellagio lobby
Very fancy lobby at a very fancy hotel walked in briefly but we figured we would probably need a GPS tracker to avoid getting lost inside. We crossed back over the boulevard and noticed the Flamingo had real flamingos somewhere on the property and that it was free to see them. As soon as we walked inside, we commented that this was not as nice a place due to the much stronger smell of smoke. We quickly walked through following the signs for the flamingos. It was a relief to be back outside in the fresh air! The Flamingo Wildlife Habitat was established in 1995 and actually has quite a variety of birds, turtles and fish. So that was neat to see in the midst of all the concrete of the strip.
At this point, Renee was starting to get annoyed because of all the butts. There were these ladies (I guess you would call them ladies?) walking around in pairs with feathery headdresses and tiny outfits which usually did not cover their butts who tried to get you to pay $40 to take a picture with them. We inevitably ended up walking behind a pair every time we came out of casino and it was really
Renee winning?
No she did not hard not to notice their butts. As Renee said "So many butts!"
Lunch had to be at In and Out. We don't have that in Illinois so it was a nice treat! There is one located on a pedestrian street outside the Linq hotel. It was nice to sit down and take a break from walking!
Our next stop was the Venetian. This place is beautiful! At first I didn't think we needed to walk into the mall, but I am glad we did. The floors were shiny, the store facades looked like Venetian buildings and the ceilings were painted to look like the sky. There was even a canal inside where you could take a gondola ride! The canal ended in the "square" and there were some opera singers putting on a show. This was the best mall I had ever been in!
By this time we were tired and so we turned around to make the long walk back to our hotel. We did stop in Paris on the way back but just briefly as we saw that in real life and the fake Paris was not as exciting.
We spent the rest of
the afternoon enjoying the warm sun on the terrace before heading to dinner. Renee chose District, a donut place located in our hotel. They also serve sliders and sandwiches. But the real draw was the homemade chocolate milk on draft. So good!
The one thing we both wanted to see on our trip were the fountains at the Bellagio. Luckily, it was only a short walk next door and we got a spot right in the middle of the lake. The fountain shows play every half hour until 8 PM and then they go every 15 minutes. Being the early birds that we are, we saw the 5:30 and 6:00 shows. This was something I could watch over and over without getting bored. We saw one show set to Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds and one set to All That Jazz. I enjoyed both, but I felt like All That Jazz was longer and slightly more impressive. It was nice to just relax and watch the water shooting up in front of the beautifully lit Bellagio. A great way to end our trip!
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