Viva Las Vegas !

During the third day of our visit to Las Vegas, we actually visited… Las Vegas! ;-)

I must have heard about this place a thousand times, but still I didn’t really know what to expect when I went there… so I was pretty curious about it. I must confess that its reputation as a bastion of kitsch, extravagance and opulent decadence is definitely well deserved.

The city itself is little more than a bunch of huge hotels and casinos scattered around a main avenue known as “The Strip”.

A bit further north, the older part of city also comprises another smaller group of casinos and hotels organized around the so called “Fremont Experience”, which is basically a street that has been covered with a digital screen where catchy audiovisual shows are played every now and then to attract the casual tourists and lure them into the charms of the many armies of coin-hungry slot machines that populate the surroundings.

Believe me, it is quite a weird sensation to walk past some truly luxurious hotels while stepping on a myriad of business-card like pictures of naked ladies in not-so-decent positions that eagerly invite you to phone and meet them. Inside the casinos, people play and play 24/7: some are playing when you go to bed at 3:00am and some are playing when you wake up at 8:00am. Waitresses even bother to bring you free drinks if they see you play, so that you don’t need to leave your spot and may keep on wasting your dough… We also found plenty of wedding chapels which were open 24h. One of them was actually a drive-in, just in case you are in a hurry: Sin City at its best!

Something that I found particularly interesting was the great variety of theme hotels in town. We stayed one night in the Stratosphere, a recognizable landmark due to its futuristic looking tower, which boasts incredible views of the city and actually has a few thrill rides built on its top. My brother and I even got to ride the vertical-drop on the needle of the tower, which certainly was a rather unique experience.

We also stayed one night at the Luxor hotel, which is famous for its huge black pyramid and the light beam that emanates from its top, shooting far out to the sky and rendering the spot visible from many miles away, deep into the surrounding desert.