Some new casinos hotels and shops on the Strip.
I’ve avoided Las Vegas like the plague for most of my life. The few times I’ve flown in, I’ve usually left from the airport to points south like the Lake Powell area. I’ve always viewed gambling as a form of taxation for the uninformed and the artiface and public drunkenness as massively unappealing. Yet when I had the opportunity recently to spend a short weekend there, I decided to give it another shot.
Center square in the Venetian.
Much to my surprise, they have abandoned the Disneyesque themes and started building casinos that an adult would not feel silly being dragged into. With its elevated pedestrian walkways and outdoor escalators the Strip made me marvel at the city planning and made for an entertaining stroll up and down it. Although most of the casinos still looked the same on the inside; endless rows of generic slot machines, dizzy lighting and gaming tables, there were a few notable exceptions: The Cosmopolitan, Paris, Paris, The Bellagio and The Venetian.
Fremont Street
Even old Vegas had its charm and coupled with reasonable temperatures and a lack of crowds, the city proved itself more interesting than I thought. I even found the short weekend too short to fully cover the Vegas I wanted to see and I’ll probably come back for more than just work.
