LAS VEGAS – Days 3 to 5

 

Day 3

Today we took a ride on Las Vegas’ hop-on-hop-off bus, the Big Bus. We took about half the route today and the rest on Friday. The trip took us past a lot of interesting places on and off The Strip. One was the Luxor casino and hotel. Photo 4 shows the front of the Luxor with its enormous replicas of the Sphinx and Cleopatra's Needle. In the foreground waseappened to capture a good example of the sleezy side of Vegas. There is another big mobile billboard that runs along The Strip constantly advertising 'Girls 2 You' and shows three very underdressed girls who look like they are up for some action. In addition to the billboard there seem to be guys who look like pimps at every street corner handing out cards with topless girls pictured on them and the phone number of that service. We are not easily disgusted but these sleezebags have managed it in spades.

One place well away from The Strip was the Atomic Testing Museum. Back in the early 1950s they actually had nuclear testing near the city and the casinos used to throw parties where guests would sit on the roof with drinks etc and watch the explosions. No kidding!! The cancer rates in Las Vegas in the following years would have been pretty bad we think.

We got a closer look at the Excalibur, featured in one of yesterday’s photos. Its theme is mediaeval England and food in the restaurants is based on that of the middle ages and is served without cutlery so you can eat it in the appropriate historical way. Rip the meat apart, stuff it in and clean up later. Sounds like the old Bunratty Castle restaurants.

We stopped at the Paris for lunch at the Village Buffet (see photo 1 showing the exterior, including a half size exact relica of the Eiffel Tower). Like all the ground floor of the Paris the Buffet is set in an old Paris street with painted sky and a light level corresponding with twilight. A unique atmosphere and the food was French provincial. Beautiful! Even the Ladies is beautifully decorated (see photo 2). When we left the restaurant and walked outside we were lucky to catch part of the fountain display at Bellagio which happens only once an hour. Spectacular!

That night we went to Bally’s to see the show Jubilee (see the short promo video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZtSwdiJcQA). It was wonderful! Most of the show was the older style Las Vegas show with chorus lines, old songs and lots of flesh and feathers. It was a topless show but Phil swears he was at least vaguely aware that other stuff was happening on stage J. The staging was spectacular and the dancing awesome. One tap dance number involving the whole chorus line was so good you could almost hear the ghost of Fred Astaire cheering.

Day 4

Friday was shopping day at the north side factory outlets on the way to and from a tour of old Las Vegas on the Big Bus. Old Las Vegas is where you find many of the wedding chapels where registered marriage celebrants of all kinds can and do perform wedding ceremonies. Apparently the number and type of Elvis impersonator celebrants is huge. You want a tall Elvis, a short Elvis, a young Elvis, an old Elvis, a black Elvis … even a female Elvis! Elvis with cleavage? Nuh.

Old Las Vegas also has many old one and two floor motels and older housing, which reminds you of scenes from old movies showing how the place was back in the 1930s to 50s. It also has an official national museum called The Mob Museum which has lots of exhibits from the days the Mob ruled the city (see photo 3).

We also saw Freemont Street which is partially covered by a large canopy and cooled by the air conditioning from the buildings. At night they have what we were told is a spectacular light show, but unfortunately we didn’t get time to see it. But we did get time to see some other famous light and sound shows of Las Vegas. That night we went to the Mirage to see the Cirque du Soleil production of Love, a show featuring the music of The Beatles (more on that below). After the show we stayed and watched the ‘eruption’ of the volcano, which faces The Strip out the front of the casino and is a big rock structure set in lovely landscaped pools. Quite a show but we thought not as great as the fountains light and sound show at Bellagio. A long string of fountains rise very high, fall and spray in all directions to the rhythms of classical music.