Arriving in Las Vegas and....
............continues from MeravigliosoWEST3: Utah............
Crossing the border into Nevada, you immediately get the impression of being catapulted into a reality quite different from Utah; in fact, right away you find casinos in the middle of the desert and plenty of ads for Strip and Lap Dance places... We cross the Mojave Desert and its vastness. We left very early, so we decide to make a detour to reach Las Vegas by driving through the Valley of Fire state park. The entrance we use is the one near Lake Mead. There's a sign indicating the area to buy the pass. Being a state park and not a national one, the park pass isn't valid here either. To our great surprise there's just a sign with the rules to follow and the ticket price, and the money goes into a closed box. It makes us smile thinking about using this method in Italy... after putting the 5 USD in the box we begin visiting the park. It's very unusual, we're glad we came.
Rocks of an intense red stretching as far as the eye can see, smoothed and sculpted by water and wind. A spectacle of nature, which by now the States have accustomed us to. We exit on the opposite side and continue on to Las Vegas. The city appears on the horizon, shrouded in haze (it's hot despite it being January) and looks to us like a ghost in the middle of the desert. The hotel where we're staying is the Luxor, a reproduction of an ancient Egyptian pyramid. Incredible to say, it takes us almost an hour to check in. Instead of an elevator we find the Inclinator, the room is very comfortable and clean, on the 16th floor of the pyramid with an entire glass wall overlooking the nearby Excalibur. We go out right away to start the casino tour... by 24:00 I'm nothing short of exhausted but happy as a child at an amusement park.
This city, excessive, lavish, fake, truly crazy for those who want—I can't say I like it, but it certainly attracts and entertains. Briefly, a few words on the casinos, which all deserve to be seen, not just for their shows. Note that inside you can't tell whether it's day or night, since they're always exactly the same in terms of crowds at the thousands of slot machines and in terms of light and temperature. (Cold) The buffets there are very convenient, where you pay a fixed price and can eat and drink as much as you like until you're stuffed, with dishes of good quality too. And it's not bad considering that elsewhere you survive on fast food and steak houses!!! Excalibur: nice outside, nothing special inside. New York New York: Outside and inside it reproduces the Big Apple. The casino is enormous, winding through the various neighborhoods of Manhattan.
Mandalay Bay: To be seen, and to be tried is its buffet. GMG: Historic but no particular attraction Paris Paris: A reproduction of Paris, nice outside and inside too, though it looks a bit dated compared to its neighbors Caesar's Palace: Reproduces ancient Rome. It's huge, with an enormous gallery of shops, two squares, a rather ugly show and an interesting aquarium. An enormous triumph of tackiness! Bellagio: A reproduction of our little town in the Como area, it is instead the triumph of luxury and beauty. This is where they filmed Ocean's Eleven. The lobby is simply superb. The gallery of the most prestigious boutiques, absolutely classy. The fountain show in the lake in front is breathtaking, with light displays and accompanied by the rhythm of beautiful and famous songs.
Mirage: Its show with the volcano eruption is nice and very American TI: Nice outside, good casino, nice the show of the TI sirens The Venetian: I swear it's not hometown bias... but this one too is truly beautiful and not to be missed. Outside and inside. The gondola canal on the second floor of the casino is insane, with the city of Venice rebuilt with its canals and real gondolas, complete with gondoliers ferrying the Japanese around this great fiction while barely singing Neapolitan songs. Absurd.
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