Christmas at Bellagio 12-23-08

Today we drove over to Las Vegas, Larry wanted to see if they decorated for Christmas. It was only an hour from here in Pahrump and the mountains between here and there are pretty.

The Las Vegas Blvd and the outside of the casinos didn't look any different, but inside the Bellagio their garden courtyard was very Christmasy. People were taking lots of pictures all over the place in front of the many pretty scenes and flowers.

I love the large blown glass "flowers" in the Bellagio lobby and I was able to get some good pictures this time. The blue arrangement was really large and was in a foyer in the casino. The artist is Dale Chihuly a world renowned glass blower based in the Seattle area of Washington, if you Google him or go to his site you can see more of his phenomenal works!

The casino's slots and tables seemed awfully quiet to us...not much was going on. We wandered through the Bellagio, Ceasar's Palace and the Venetian. It has been six years since we were last in Las Vegas and much has changed. We had stayed at the Monte Carlo and from our room we were able to see the dancing waters in front of the Bellagio, but no longer! Now there are 5 very tall towers being built in between, we didn't see what they were to become and we couldn't remember what it was they are replacing, but the new buildings are always a surprise.

Last time we really enjoyed the Venetian shops, it was like walking through a Venetian street complete with canals and "sky" above. All the fun and quirky shops are gone and have been replaced with all high end designer shops...Tiffany, Dior, Cartier, Louis Vitton, Gucci and all the rest that I can't remember right now. Not much shopping was going on, even with it being two days before Christmas. The layout isn't as enjoyable either.

We did find the Cheesecake Factory at Caesar's and gorged ourselves on fantastic cheesecake, then we wandered around some more to settle the cake. We decided to head back to Pahrump after only about four hours in Vegas. We don't gamble, the shows are too expensive, we aren't drinkers and we aren't high end shoppers, so we had enough and both agreed that we don't need to return to Las Vegas. We had heard that they were turning their focus on more exclusive hoity-toity atmospheres and we can see that this town isn't for us! It used to be fun to just walk around, but not so much anymore.