Vegas is quite simply mad. Mad insane and ridiculously huge.

I had heard a lot about Vegas from friends and I had read even more. That’s not even including the movies I have seen.  And as if that was not enough I had youtubed every possible aspect of Vegas before we left (I was a very excited traveller).

Nothing could have prepared me for Vegas. Nothing. Not even Vegas could prepare me for Vegas.

It is HUGE. Huge and insane.

And there are a couple of things it seems to have forgotten

All around you nothing at all – just desert.  Perhaps the mafia and the builders of the Hoover Dam took this into account when they decided to build a city but I think not. I think they also forgot that they were in America.  This is how I imagine a conversation between the architects and builder of Vegas (Vegas) and the desert may have gone (Desert)

Vegas:             Let’s build the tallest hotels that we can

Desert:            But there is no water and no rain, how are we going to service these hotels ?

Vegas:             We will get money from gamblers and water from dams. And bottles

Desert:            Okay we can get tall buildings plumbed and I guess we can get some gamblers in but I am looking to you for inspiration on shape.

Vegas:             Me? Don’t look at Me. Look at the world around you. We want Paris, we want New York, hell we’ll take the whole of Italy and stash it in a corner next to a gold soaring    tower. Oh and I want Egypt, a pyramid and a sphinx included. And down the road? A volcano that erupts every hour.

I also want a billion lights per square meter and don’t forget I want more slot machines than lights.   And while I am at it I want ice sculptures in the lobbies of some of my hotels.

Desert:            But I am a desert. You cannot sustain ice in a desert

Vegas:             I’m Vegas baby.

Desert:            No seriously, we are in the middle of a desert, it doesn’t rain and you want lights that never switch off, you want roller coasters on the top of buildings, you want a canal with gondola rides and that’s before we get to the whacky stuff.

Vegas:             What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

Desert:            Stop with the Vegas sayings and think about what you are asking of me?

Vegas:             *Calls in mafia and gets rid of desert to create insane playground*

We had a ball. Seriously as soon as we let go of the guilt of the flamboyance in the middle of the dessert we sucked it right up. Our Hotel was like nothing I have ever seen before – we stayed at the Pallazo at the Venetian and there truly was a gondola ride through the canals of the Venice which just so happened to be in the lobby of the hotel. Our room was magnificent, the pool was perfect and my son thought he would be happy if we never actually left the hotel but when we did there was so much to delight and astound him. And us.

Build it huge and make it shiny

Our hotel. Not small

This is inside our hotel, oh yes it is. INSIDE

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A canal. In a Hotel. Only in Vegas

No still not Italy, just the ceiling of the hotel I stayed in

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New York. In Vegas

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Inside the New York New York. Seriously this is a hotel people

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Every desert needs a Sphinx

and a pyramid

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Paris. In Vegas

An ice sculpture is essential in any good desert

A play in a shopping centre. As you do

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The fountains at The Bellagio

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View from the helicopter

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Awesome

Amazing

and sensational