A few days in Vegas

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We flew from San Jose to Las Vegas, which was having a number of years of rain in just two days. It was pouring with rain, and the taxi driver asked us if we could swim, as he drove thru some well established puddles in the road! We checked into our hotel, Harrahs, and noticed the casino element of the hotel immediately - it was difficult to miss! I don’t know what I expected of Las Vegas, I didn’t really have any preconceived ideas. Having been there, it is loud, brash, unreal, but really well done. The hotels each have a theme, or a special feature. We walked up and down the ‘strip’ Las Vegas Boulevard with all the hotels on it. It was great. The striking features are the Paris hotel, complete with half size Eiffel Tower and an Arc de Triomphe; the MGM dominates one end of the strip, with the architecturally wonderful New York New York opposite. The Venetian was fantastic, one of my favourite hotels to look at and walk around. The canal inside, complete with gondolas and the singing gondoliers was superb, and the re-creation of St Mark’s square was really excellent. The painted ceiling was very sky-like - and other hotel shopping centres such as Caesar’s Palace and the Aladdin had similar skies. The Bellagio fountain displays or shows were excellent, I could have watched them for hours, both during the daylight hours, and for the night time shows. The choreography was excellent. Caesar’s Palace I thought was architecturally a bit of a mess, a mix of all sorts of things that seemed just plonked down in a space, with no overall plan or scheme. However, some elements of the hotel were excellent, I loved the re-creation of the Prima Porta statue of Augustus, and I also loved the rotunda that was at the front. We also went on the Star Trek experience. It was fantastic, especially the Klingon Encounter in preference to the Borg 4D experience. Riding thru space in the simulator/shuttle to escape the Klingons, was fantastic - I loved it! We also had a brief look around the Luxor hotel, which had some good Egyptian statues, and of course the sphinx (this one does have a nose - the real one in Giza/Cairo doesn’t!). The highlight was our trip to the Grand Canyon.

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