Long live Las Vegas!

On day 14, we went from the mountain world of Utah down to the desert of Nevada. After a little over 3.5 hours and about 220 miles, we reached Las Vegas, where we checked into the Venetian Palazzo Resort for 2 days. Since our last visit to the desert city over 20 years ago, we recognized a lot right away. But much has been added. The hotel-casino complexes are getting bigger and crazier. It took us over 10 minutes from the lobby to the room in our hotel alone. Exploring this artificial world modeled after the lagoon city of Venice quickly leads to aimless wandering without a map: Through the huge casino ("Ladies, please do not step on the marked carpet....!"), along the canals with the singing gondoliers and the streets with numerous restaurants (of course all indoor...), into the immense shopping mall with countless shops and boutiques; and all under a cheesy azure blue sky. After this first impression, we ventured out into the sweltering afternoon heat (44°C), walked along the Las Vegas Strip and made detours into the air-conditioned artificial worlds of Treasure Island, The Mirage, Bellagio, Caeser's Palace, and Paris. In the evening, we took the same route again, but this time in the middle of the flickering and flashing sea of lights. After dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, we visited Excalibur and New York New York and then took the monorail to the hotel-casino complexes of Mandalay and the pyramid-shaped Luxor. Back in our hotel room, we collapsed exhausted on the couch, where we enjoyed the view of the Strip before falling asleep... Las Vegas definitely comes alive at night. Ilenia's pedometer reached the 30,000-mark that day. We spent most of the next morning with cool drinks by the hotel pool. In the afternoon, we went on a shopping tour to an outlet mall. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant on the Canale Grande in our hotel. Finally, us "older folks" tried our luck at the casino. The loss was bearable ;-). Conclusion: The entertainment and dream worlds in Las Vegas, in the sense of "nothing is impossible," are certainly amusing and worth seeing, but they were unable to surpass the previous impressions of our trip...