The Stratosphere Tower.
The Stratosphere tower sits at the Northern end of the strip & towers way above everything around it. At the top there's a totally uninterrupted view of the city & the surrounding mountains.
The Stratosphere also has a couple of terrifying rides at the top. The one above is probably the nuttiest of them. It's basically a big see-saw with the green thing pictured sliding back & fourth along it. Seems simple, but the green thing kind of gets tipped of the edge & stops suddenly before it falls right off the tower.
There's another one (below) that spins you over the edge of the tower facing the ground. Again, completely not fun, just terrifying.
Needless to say, we just went up & enjoyed the view.
The Venetian
The most northern "interesting" hotel on the strip is the Venetian.
The designer of this hotel has gone to a lot of trouble to try to copy the main tourist circuit of Venice. I'd have to say they did a pretty good job too. The main difference is the Vegas version doesn't smell, the water is crystal clear & NO PIGEONS.
I think I prefer the Vegas version.
Inside the Venetian is almost as interesting as outside. They've gone to a lot of trouble to re-create the narrow streets & little walk bridges like the Venice, Italy. That includes canals running all through the building. There are heaps of shops & restaurants (like in Venice) and they've gone to great length to replicate St Mark's Square (below) minus the pigeons. This photo isn't a great one, but you get the gist. They've even painted the sky on the ceiling to make you think you're outside.
The Mirage
For the Mirage, the gimmick is the Volcano out front. It looks like a waterfall in this photo, but at night they have a gas fired eruption every 15 minutes. We didn't see it because we just didn't get the opportunity, but I've seen it on the net.
Oh, & apparently they have dolphins inside the hotel complex.
Caeser's Palace
Caesar's Palace is huge! It doesn't seem to have a gimmick other than the hotel itself. You can do Rome without leaving North America. The following pics will show you some of the classic Rome tourist attractions.
The Colosseum.
The Colosseum is just one part of Caesar's Palace & is where they host their shows. (Kind of appropriate I guess).
Supposedly the Pantheon is the most impressive architectural monument left by the Roman Empire. Something about biggest self supporting dome in the ancient world.
The Las Vegas version is quite a bit smaller than the real McCoy. There is a piss weak version of the Spanish steps behind it as well.
The copy of the Trevey Fountain is a pretty good replica. You can only tell that it's not the real one because it's clean!
The Bellagio
The Bellagio is one of the more famous of the hotel/casinos on the strip. Its certainly the classiest & most expensive.
We actually went to see one of the Circ de Soleil shows, "O" in the Bellagio. Shows aren't really my thing, but this one was awesome! Those who have seen a Circ show before would know they're very acrobatic. This one was compounded with a pool for a stage adding diving to the spectacle.
They have some major hardware below the stage that brings a series of porous platforms up to the surface at times, making for a dry stage (or part there of at times). The system of cranes in the ceiling for the sets are equally as impressive.
The Bellagio also has a decent Japanese Garden, although I'm not sure why.
The Bellagio is probably best known for it's night time fountain shows. The photos don't do it justice of course, but they still came out nicely.
Paris Las Vegas
I don't think I have to explain the name.
Paris Las Vegas even has it's own Arc de Triomphe complete with roundabout. It doesn't have the multi-laned mad traffic accident magnet that the Parisian version has, but it's still a roundabout.
All the hotels in Vegas have some kind of array of lights that make them look more interesting at night. Paris Las Vegas is no exception.
New York-New York
This is the hotel we stayed in the first couple of nights we were in Vegas. It was very nice & reasonably priced. We had a view across to the MGM Grand & Excalibur. The roller coaster was annoying until about 11pm, but that wasn't an issue by the time we went to bed.
Oh, and the roller coaster was pretty exciting. It runs pretty much around the perimeter of the hotel.
MGM Grand
The MGM Grand is one of the newer Casinos. To be honest it wasn't that impressive during the day.
Their gimmick is the lion habitat. It's not very interesting really. They have a couple of lions in a big glass enclosure that lay around doing nothing (they're big cats after all). They have rotate different lions every day.
The MGM was much more interesting at night time. This is what we looked at straight across from our hotel window. (Slightly different angle, but you get the drift).
Excalibur.
Excalibur is one of the wackiest looking of the Casinos, but one of the better ones to find something decent to eat (that wasn't some variation of burger & fries) at a reasonable price.
The Luxor
They went all out when they designed the Luxor. That black pyramid is effectively hollow. The walls aren't just a skin either. The hotel rooms actually rise up the skin of the structure & the black glass you can see in this shot makes up the windows for the rooms. I couldn't get a decent shot of the inside to illustrate the concept but you can see what I mean from the picture on the Hotel's website. It's a very impressive engineering exercise.
This is my favourite shot from Las Vegas. It was very difficult to take as it was at night (so I had to use a tripod) and I was hard up against the exit doors for the Mono-rail. It was worth it.
You'll notice a couple of things in this shot. The two lines of light coming off the Sphinx's shoulders are actually the outline of the black pyramid in the previous shot. The beam of light that appears to be coming out of the Sphinx's head in fact comes from the apex of the pyramid & can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Vegas.
