From the Brooklyn Bridge to the Rialto

New York-New York

A Manhattan skyline wrapped in a roller coaster, kicked off in 1997, and still one of the Strip's most photographed facades.

You're standing in front of the New York-New York, and yes, that is a roller coaster wrapped around a Manhattan skyline. The hotel opened in 1997 and immediately became one of the Strip's most photographed facades. The Brooklyn Bridge replica out front is close to scale. Look up and you'll see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty all within a couple hundred feet of each other.

New Yorkers will tell you the real city is nothing like this. They're right. That's the point. Take a few minutes to walk along the frontage.

The Big Apple Coaster runs right past the sidewalk. If you're lucky, a train will scream overhead while you're standing here. From here you're walking north: Paris, Bellagio, Caesars, all the way to Venice. The whole route runs about three miles.

Stay on this side of the Strip for now.

Paris Las Vegas

A half-scale Eiffel Tower, an Arc de Triomphe, and a casino floor pretending to be a Parisian street.

The Eiffel Tower at Paris Las Vegas is a half-scale replica of the original, and at 46 stories it was the tallest structure on the Strip when it opened in 1999. You can go up (there's a ticket desk inside), but even from the ground, the thing is a genuine feat of engineering. The legs straddle the casino floor. The observation deck has views straight down the Boulevard.

Underneath, the resort runs a greatest-hits reel of Paris: the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre facade, a Montgolfier balloon sign. The cobblestone walkways and fake sky inside try hard to sell the illusion, but the real show is watching people react to a 540-foot tower in the Nevada desert. When you're ready, look across the street. That lake in front of the Bellagio is your next stop.

Bellagio

The fountains, the Chihuly ceiling, the 14,000-square-foot conservatory, the Strip's most elegant free spectacle.

The Bellagio opened in 1998 and cost 1.6 billion dollars, which at the time made it the most expensive hotel ever built. The lake out front is eight acres and holds 22 million gallons of water, recycled from an on-site well. More than a thousand nozzles shoot water as high as 460 feet, choreographed to everything from Sinatra to the theme from Titanic. Walk inside through the main lobby and look straight up.

That ceiling (2,000 hand-blown glass flowers by Dale Chihuly) is called Fiori di Como. It weighs 40,000 pounds. From the lobby, follow the signs to the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. It's 14,000 square feet, free, open 24 hours a day, and completely reinvented five times a year.

Designer Ed Libby and a team of gardeners and engineers rebuild it for spring, summer, fall, winter, and Lunar New Year. The current display changes with the season. Spend a good twenty minutes here. When you're ready, exit through the north doors toward Flamingo Road.